Hybrid territory: the shaping of public display at Rutgers Gardens

An important but often overlooked aspect to Rutgers Gardens is the work of plant scientists in shaping visitor experience. Research on plant hybrid science offers a lens to define Rutgers Gardens’ sense of place. This is most apparent in the ways plant scientists have shaped the physical form of the Rutgers University landscape, as well as the how their work at Rutgers Gardens is distributed beyond the botanical garden. In this thesis, I organize my investigation of Rutgers Gardens as a display and botanical garden chronologically around three major periods of plant hybridization research: the foundational era, the ornamental dogwood era and the contemporary hazelnut hybrid research era. A mixed methods approach of archival research, interviews, and mapping and diagramming is used to construct a historical narrative of plant hybridization within the realm of Rutgers Gardens. This research indicates that initially, plant hybrid scientists played a critical, if not the sole, role in shaping the public botanic display at Rutgers Gardens. Over time, though, plant hybrid scientists’ role diminished. Furthermore, plant hybridization is an ideal lens through which to study the history of Rutgers Gardens, as well as the history of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station and the College of Agriculture, now Rutgers University’s Cook Campus and the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Trends of plant hybridization research parallel trends of agricultural diversification, suburbanization and edible and sustainable agricultural practices in New Jersey. Lastly, a tension between public access and private research and economic botany exists at Rutgers Gardens. This tension should be maintained in order to sustain Rutgers Gardens’ sense of place as a hybrid territory of scientific research, economic botany, display and design.M.L.A.Includes bibliographical referencesby David Hanraha