TRAVEL: A SHOWCASE FOR DIVERSITY
When I visited the picturesque Mexican town of Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ca), the many-hued buildings of it colonial centre were awash in a clear light, illuminating them like sparkling jewels. Walking down one of these streets I found, hidden from view, another of the city’s treasures: the Jardin Ethnobotanique.
The garden’s open gateway invites one to leave behind the richly colourful street scenes and to step inside a rather austere world of magnificent plant specimens that reflect the landscape beyond the town. The collections of indigenous plants housed here have been brought in from all over the state. The genius of this beautifully laid-out garden lies in the illustrative usage of its plant material which successfully conveys a strong sense of Oaxaca’s identity, the region’s biodiversity as well as its culture and history.
The six-acre site was originally part of the grounds of the ornate and richly decorated Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzman, a Spanish church built by the European conquerors in 1529 — a time when the Spaniards started converting the indigenous population to Christianity. The Church was a Dominican Convent from 1608-1857 after which it was converted to army barracks, a function it retained until 1994. Eventually, it fell into disuse and put up for sale for commercial purposes. But a petition by the locals saved it from this fate; the convent was restored and, in 1997, work began to rebuild the botanic garden anew.
A 16th-century church ground converted into a garden celebrates Oaxaca’s exceptional botanical variety
The garden is divided into different parts and is the work of local artists Luis Zarate and Francisco Toledo who designed the layout. The church, with its stone walls and cupola, is visible as one walks through the garden, providing a beautiful backdrop and structure to the garden. The botanic part of the garden contains a myriad of cactus varieties and agricultural plants that further serve to illustrate the culture and traditions of the region in terms of food, medicinal use, farming and historical uses of plants.