Page 53 - Reside Magazine Premier Central Florida

director of the botanical gardens at the
Huntington—a library, art museum, and
botanical garden in Pasadena, California. While
many public gardens are simply meant for human
enjoyment, botanical gardens like those at the
Huntington have a more scientific agenda and
collect plant specimens for a specific purpose.
At the Huntington, the botanical gardens
encompass nearly 130 acres and include 16
themed gardens, ranging from dedicated palm,
jungle, and rose gardens to a Japanese landscape
with a ceremonial teahouse called Seifu-an
(“Arbor of Pure Breeze”) and a desert garden with
one of the largest outdoor collections of cacti
and succulents in the world. More than 16,000
species of plants make up the Huntington’s
collection, which complements the collections
of fine art, manuscripts, and rare books on view
inside its celebrated library and art museum.
“Henry Huntington was a collector by
nature, so it was very natural for him to collect
plants,” says Cavender of the institution’s
founder, who helped establish the electric
railway system in Los Angeles after moving
there in 1902. He purchased the Pasadena
property in 1903 and, with his second wife
Arabella Duval Huntington, began amassing
the extensive cultural and botanical collections
that define the institution today, including
one of the world’s largest troves of British
medieval manuscripts, one of 12 surviving
copies on vellum of the Gutenberg Bible,
extensive holdings of Americana and science and technology, as well as
a very significant collection of British portraiture.
While Huntington originally established the gardens to advance
his business opportunities for real estate and agriculture in what was a newly
booming region—and to satisfy his collector’s impulse—today the
botanical gardens are frequented by casual visitors as well as horticulturists
and scholars from around the world. “We have one of the most diverse plant
collections in the country, if not the world,” says Cavender. “At the same time,
there’s a magic in the experiential quality of the gardens that Henry Huntington
established very early on.”
Photos: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; Christopher Sprinkle © 2018 J. Paul Getty Trust; Cassia Davis © 2023 J. Paul Getty Trust; Timothy Schenck, courtesy of the High Line. From left: The Huntington’s 15-acre and reminds us of our intimate connection to the planet we call home.
Whether designed for artistic, cultural, or scientific purposes, gardens
have the potential to shape human experience in a way that both inspires

Just as art can reveal new perspectives and help us understand each other, so
too can gardens open our worldview to something similarly expansive. “If
people have an experience of beauty in the gardens that taps into something
deeper, that means they are thinking beyond themselves and about their place
Chinese Garden is inspired by a UNESCO
in the world,” says Cavender. “I want people to be inspired, because I want the
heritage site in Suzhou, China, and was
co-developed and installed by designers
world to be better.” 0
and artisans from the region; Echinopsis
Lauren Gallow is is a Seattle-based writer and editor covering art,
“April Dawn” cacti can be found in the
architecture, and design
Huntington’s Desert Garden
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