While the Oxford Botanic Gardens do not always fall on the main tourist trail, these historic grounds have proved to be a saving grace for people confined in the city during lockdowns. In my own case, four separate visits to the Gardens over the course of the academic year showed them to be full of surprises, a restorative tonic in any weather. Like the seasons, the Gardens are a changing yet permanent entity, a series of dramatic mood swings regimented in specific patterns.

    As I write this review, almost a year since starting my Masters in 2020, the leaves are beginning to brown again, and the regretful, lingering goodbye to the summer mood is settling in. Common wisdom might say that this is the time to start retreating indoors, but the past year has taught me differently. Against the pull of domiciliary warmth, I entreat those of you in Oxfordshire to follow my lead, brave the cold, and visit the Botanic Gardens!

    The Botanic Gardens are not merely some kind of fancy park; these verdant grounds have historical, scientific, and contemporary cultural value to appreciate. Founded in 1621, the Gardens are the oldest of their kind in the UK, celebrating their 400th anniversary this year (Visit, 2021). They have played a major role in botanical research and the teaching of related sciences at the University of Oxford since their founding, and today contain over 5,000 species of plants. Visitors with little knowledge of the history of botany can enjoy other aspects of the Gardens’ cultural legacy, as their societal impact is spread across books and films. Readers of Philip Pullman’s fantasy writing, for instance, might recognise the unassuming bench nestled in the Lower Garden: the meeting place for the protagonists in his novel series His Dark Materials.

    In all honesty, I knew almost none of these facts before my first visit to the Gardens. To me, the Gardens were simply another green area in the city worth exploring while the Great Indoors was off-limits. Students get free entry, another fact which drew me in. As the rest of this review will testify, however, the Gardens offered much more than a free stroll through pretty flora. Although my initial motivations for visiting were not particularly profound, my experiences there would have a significant impact on my year at Oxford; and how glad I was to have made the decision of going.
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​Autumn

    On my first visit to the Gardens with friends, towards the end of Michaelmas Term, I discovered a rare space in the city unclaimed by libraries, colleges, or cafés. The gentle cascades of the fountain, symmetrically aligned with the walkways, created a calm, monastic-like retreat from the hustle and bustle of Magdalen Street and the urgency of essay deadlines.

    Immediately apparent was how the Gardens, enclosed and spatially limited, contrasted with modern Oxford’s expanding architecture. Beyond their walls, I could see the rooftop garden of St Hilda’s Anniversary Building beaming across the sports grounds of Magdalen College School.

    Inside the walls was a world preserved in amber. Netflix and the entire digitality of my Masters course saw me glued to screens nearly all term; but in the Gardens, my eyes could, at long last, feast on something tangible in nature: the Orchard in full autumn regalia with bruised apples scattered on the ground.
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    Here was a setting ideal for solitary walks, reflection, and contemplation, but equally for fertilising friendships at a time when socialising was restricted. Displays offered a wealth of talking points for first-time browsers. (The phallic shape of the luminous green pitcher plants in the Carnivorous Plant House sparked a conversation about plant pornography, which is an actual thing, believe it or not.) And for shutterbugs like myself, the Gardens were wonderfully photogenic. The backdrop of the Danby Gate featured in many an Instagram story, another way to connect digitally with friends.
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Winter

    A cold Hilary Term, combined with another lockdown, made the world shrink further into its shell. Nearly every establishment was closed off; yet, the Botanic Gardens, somewhat miraculously, continued to welcome visitors, and I was comforted by the thought of returning.
    Two months since my last trip, the Gardens had noticeably transformed. The majority of plants in the taxonomic beds were enlaced in threads of frost, and any warmth which could have been drawn from the greenhouses was denied to us, since they too were locked away. But the Gardens presented yet again the opportunity to get out of the house, catch up with friends, and enjoy Oxford, albeit in dormant form. In winter they exhibited another kind of loveliness: icy dustings on withered ivy and the half-frozen surface of the lily pond could not help but arrest my gaze.
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Spring

    In Trinity Term, I took a studious approach to the Gardens. On previous ventures, I was mainly looking for Gram-worthy sights, but after two visits I came to see the Gardens as much more than just picturesque. They housed an extensive international collection of plants that merited my closer attention.

    So, on my third visit, I explored the south-west corner of the Walled Garden with my housemate, a botanist and painter. This area contained a modern medicinal plant collection that included remedies for a range of illnesses and diseases, from cancer to blood disorders.

    Riotous masses of shrubs and flowers mingled together in densely plotted rows. The true power of these plants was explained on information boards; curative properties written in embossed gold lettering. I learned that the seemingly innocuous creamy white flowers of Bishop’s Weed concealed a drug for treating vitiligo and psoriasis.

    In the mix, we spotted some of the herbal remedies our parents used to prescribe us, with insistence, for various ailments, which brought the botanical display unexpectedly close to home. The displays also prompted memories of studying plant classification systems for my housemate. She went on to teach me the differences between flowering (angiosperm) and non-flowering (gymnosperm) plants, in an entertaining one-on-one tutorial session.

    Perusing the Gardens’ living collection of medicinal plants, I did not make a connection between the species on display and the ongoing pandemic. Reflecting on my memories now, however, it strikes me that, as an expression of human endeavour to fight diseases, the medicinal plant collection had very timely meaning in this chapter of our history.
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    I, for one, recall how medicinal plants, in their unprocessed forms, are still being used by millions of people, even after the invention of synthetic cures, and that these plants also saw a surge in popularity during the pandemic. The plots I studied with my housemate were not relics of the past, but vivid testaments of our continued reliance on plants in modern times.
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Summer

    My final visit to the Gardens was tinged with a sense of nostalgia. It was one of many trips a coursemate and I had planned for during term, but were too short on time to make it back then.
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    I noticed again the Gardens resisting the fixity of a picture frame. Pale pink apple blossoms were beginning to fade in the Orchard, like a shadow of spring’s decline. In hazy sunshine, they fell to the charge of seasons anew, and the forthcoming barren winter.

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​Conclusion

    From waterlilies to wildflowers, the plants of the Botanic Gardens, unconfined to vases or window boxes, are still cultivated for human use. In spite of this, the plants retain an enigmatic quality that separates them from the usual stuff of daily life. Like other elements of the natural world, the denizens of the Gardens are something of an ‘abominable mystery,’ to quote Darwin (1903, pp. 20-21), which cannot be solved, no matter how many times you revisit them.

    The Gardens encapsulate in miniature the shifts we see in Oxford’s physical landscape from Michaelmas through to Trinity. My visits, at time in which outdoor space was treasured more than ever, allowed me to experience the seasons as if for the first time, like a new-born baby. I loved the small details – leaves changing hues; episodes of wind, rain, and sunshine – especially while larger circumstances outside of the garden walls were nebulous to the point of incomprehensibility.

    Each outing to the Gardens had a unique social dynamic, as I was joined by a different group of people every time. In turns, the place became a location for catching up with old friends, getting to know new coursemates better, and expanding my botanical lexicon. Going back there thrice again with new companions and purposes made consistency, and variation, of the visits.
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    Oxford’s Botanic Gardens are timeless and polymorphous, a site for continuous discovery. I see in them a reflection of the university year, and the city’s cycle of the seasons.

References

Darwin, C. (1903). Letter 395: To J. D. Hooker. In Darwin, Francis & Seward, A.C. (Eds.), More letters of Charles Darwin (pp. 20-22). John Murray.
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Visit Oxford Botanic Garden. (2021). Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum.
https://www.obga.ox.ac.uk/visit-garden

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