The greater Cornell Botanic Gardens is composed of 4,300 acres of nature. Last Saturday, we looked at a small portion of that land in great depth. As soon as our group of Rose Scholars arrived at the gardens, the tour guide’s first objective was to explain the architecture behind its welcome center. The Nevin Welcome Center is a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified building. As testament to this credential, our tour guide explained how the building was strategically placed with respect to the sun so that it needed minimal cooling in the summer and minimal heating in the winter. The rest of our tour was more focused on the actual plants of the Botanic Garden. Our tour guide had been giving tours for twenty years, and she had a wide range of subjects to talk about. One tidbit of information that specifically stood out to me was about a small portion of the Botanic Gardens filled with evergreen trees. Our tour guide told us that this section was dedicated to providing greenery for students year round, especially during the winter months when deciduous trees become barren and scenery can become dreary.

Another interesting story she told us was about the language of flowers. As a social norm, English suitors and their romantic interests were discouraged from direct communication during the Victorian era. To still express their feelings, they would send flowers to one another. A certain color of rose, for example would correspond to sending a message of friendship, while another color could tell the recipient that the sender suspects infidelity. Many of these different colored flowers were laid out before us.

The Botanic Gardens is a great place to aimlessly walk around if you have any free time on your hands. If you’re more interested in the stories intertwined with the garden’s history, then a tour guide is a better option. Going on the tour made me see the dedication Cornell invests in preserving a multitude of plant life, from the keeping of the plants themselves, to the emphasis on environmentally friendly buildings.