Who Tells Our Story? A Garden Can.

The report of the Public Garden Focus Group is now available.  I tip my hat to them. Creating reports like this takes a lot of effort and their work has definitely been a public service. So, check it out!

You can view the county’s press release here, and the full report is available at this link:

A Public Garden for Howard County Maryland

Here’s a write-up from the Baltimore Banner: 

Howard County’s public garden will honor its troubled past, Jess Nocera

While I’m not keen on the title of the article, I’m also aware that Nocera probably didn’t have any input in writing it, so I won’t hold it against her.  If you read the article and/or the report itself it’s clear that the plans for the public garden are meant to honor the history of the site itself: a former plantation which held and exploited enslaved people.  The title of the article makes it look as though the focus is a troubled Howard County in general. 

What can I say? Things like this bug me.

When I wrote about this in July I had high hopes for the outcome of this report as the focus group examined possibilities for a uniquely Howard County public garden.

The Longwood site has the potential to provide public spaces for aesthetic enjoyment as well as environmental education. Embedded within all those possibilities is the heavy burden of the history of the land itself as a “plantation” or forced labor camp for enslaved Africans. My highest priority for this site is that the resulting gardens place as high a value on the history as they do on the planting and maintaining of the natural environment.

Ironically, the release of the report coincides with the virulent wave of history denialism from the new administration in Washington. Do we have the commitment and courage in Howard County to stand up for our convictions and create a public garden that both inspires and educates? 

I certainly hope so. 

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