Botanical Garden

Botanical Garden

 

 

A botanical garden is an area in which plants are grown primarily for scientific study or for viewing by the public. A garden solely for tress,  shrubs, and vines is more exactly termed an arboretum. Some gardens are chiefly for scientific study; others emphasize ornamental displays and public education, and some are solely recreational areas. Many gardens maintain large herbaria, collections of dried plant specimens used as references for classifying unknown plants.

History. Some of the first botanical gardens were formal parks built as early as 2000 BC by the Assyrians. Most of the earliest gardens, however, were ancient Chinese and Egyptian temple gardens for raising fruit, vegetables, and medicinal herbs. The first record of such facilities is a description of the temple garden at Karnak, built in 1500 BC. Better documented is Aristotle's herbal garden, built about 350 BC and directed by the noted botanist Theophrastus. 

Stimulated by the reliance on herbal medicine in the 16th and 17th centuries, European medical schools founded botanical gardens devoted mainly to medicinal species. The garden were used for training medical students. The first such gardens were in Italy - in Pisa around 1543 and Padua in 1545 -  and similar gardens were later founded in other major cities. The garden in Leiden, Holland (1587), is credited with starting the Dutch bulb industry.

Later development. As the science of botany grew during the 18th and 19th centuries, the traditional herbal gardens gave way to gardens for the scientific study, commercial development, and display of wider varieties of plants. Botanical gardens as those in Kew (near London. 1759; Uppsala (1787), Madrid (1788), Rio de Janeiro (1808), Leningrad (1843), Washington D.C. (1850), St. Louis (1859), the Arnold Arboretum in Cambridge, Mass (1872) and New York City (1895). The Royal Botanic Garden at Kew sent expeditions all over the world to find commercial species, and reputedly those efforts spread the cultivation of such plants as rubber, banana, tea, pineapple, coffee, cacao, and the quinine-yielding cinchona.

The United states today has over 300 botanical gardens, the most important are the Brooklyn Botanical Garden and Arboretum, The Longwood Gardens (near Kenneth Square, Pa), the United State National Arboretum (Washington D.C.) , the Arnold Arboretum, the Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis), The New York Botanical Garden (New York City), The University California Botanical Garden (Berkeley), The Holden Arboretum (Mentor, Ohio), and The Fairchild Tropical Garden (Miami). The Longwood Gardens, in cooperation with the U.S National Gardens, in recent years has sent out botanical expeditions worldwide.

The foremost Canadian gardens include the Montreal Botanical Garden, with its collection, and The Dominion Arboretum and Botanical Garden, Ottawa (1889), Canada's oldest botanical garden. Australia's well-designed Royal Botanical Garden and National Herbarium emphasize plant species native to Australis.

Bibliography : Hyams, E.S., and McQuitty, W., Great Botanical Garden of the World (1969) ; Prest, John, The Garden of Eden; The Botanical Garden and The Re-Creation of Paradise (1982); Wright, Tom, Large Garden and Parks; Maintenance, Management and Design (1982); Wyman, Donald, The Arboretum and Botanical Garden of North America (1969).

Losari Coffee Plantation

Everything changes when you step across the threshold of clubhouse at Losari Spa Retreat and Coffee Plantation. The bright, white mountain light gives way to cool grey and brown shadows. The buzz of jungle crickets and the electric hum of the hillsides are ostracized by building's stolid, colonial walls. Even the humidity seems to hover at the clubhouse's doorway, as if scared to enter a coolness that has taken nearly 200 years to manifest itself fully and now stands sentinel against even the hottest, muggiest February day. The clubhouse, one of just two remaining buildings that once formed part of this original Dutch colonial estate, is not just adept at keeping the Javanese elements at bay. Standing inside its four walls, one gets the overwhelming feeling that the passing of time has also been refused entry at the doorway. Time doesn't have ticket. Time doesn't meet the requisite dress code. Time is not welcome here.The resort's reception area, housed in a salvaged and rebuilt historic wooden train station that once sheltered passengers in nearby Jepara, promises of Losari's advertisements might just live up to their word. Losari Coffee Plantation gives the impression of being surrounded on all sides by mountains. That's because its surrounded on all sides by mountains. At the resort's elevation, the mountain air is cool, though hardly crisp, and the sun seemed more willing to poke its face through the clouds to bask upon the mountains that it had back at sea level in Yogyakarta. Java Red, the resort's impeccable premier restaurant overlooking yet more mountains (four are visible from the deck, including an eversmoking Merapi) and listening to the drip of the dew in the trees and the calls of the wildlife all around. The impressive breakfast list tempted with a variety of treats : truffle and mushroom omelet, freshly baked French pastries, and even traditional New York bagel and lox (that's smoked salmon for non-residents of the Big Apple). And of course there was the freshly roasted coffee deep, robust and meaningful. After soaking up the sun for a couple of hours in the resort's wonderful infinity pool, which seemed to be intent on pouring itself right into the jungle. the tour of Losari Coffee Plantation Area.Losari Coffee Plantation, by its management's unabashed admission, a resort that also grows coffee as opposed to a coffee plantation that also houses guests. But there's nothing amateurish about the way the plantation's staff treats the 22 acres of Robusta, Arabica, and local coffee bushels or the way they dry, roast and brew their coffee.The smells, the sights and sounds of the beautiful little plantation was very delighted, and we can tried grinding some coffee beans with the help of tour guide.

Bali Botanical Garden

The Kebun Raya "Eka Raya", better known as Bali Botanical Garden (www.kebunrayabali.com), is one of four in network of Indonesian Botanical Gardens. The other three are located in Bogor, Cibodas and Purwodadi. Bali Botanical Garden was officially opened in 1959, but stagnated during the politically unstable mid-60s, and was only restored to its former glory in 1975  

Bali Botanical Garden contains over 2,000 plant species from eight families, namely orchid, begonias, ferns, cacti, roses, medicinal plants, aquatic plants, and ceremonial plants. The begonias are the highlight here, as the garden hosts about 25% of the world's begonia species.

In the Cyathea Garden, visitors can walk around on footpaths carpeted  with small stones, while observing fascinating collection of ferns. There is also a Usada Garden, which covers an area of 1,600 squares metres and which houses more than 300 plants commonly used in traditional Balinese healing. Meanwhile, the Cacti collection Green House is filled with various cacti, including desert cacti.

Apart from being a terrific recreational site for plant lovers, Bali Botanical Garden also functions as a research and conservation facility and runs various environmental educational programmes for students, from elemtary to high school, as well as offering gardening courses to the general public

Bali Botanical Garden is open every day (except during the Hindu Holiday of Nyepi) from 8am until 6pm. Facilities available here include the library, a garden shop, the Nyaka Loka Convention Hall which has a capacity of 250 people, and a guesthouse for visitors or researchers who wish to stay overnight.  

How To Get There

The Garden is located about 60 kilometres from Denpasar and direction to Singaraja. Drive along Jalan Pancasari-Baturiti up to the intersection to the west of the Danau Beratan Lake, then turn left and head north.