US Botanical Garden – “The National Garden of the American Wilderness” - Washington D.C.

The Wilderness Garden was designed to serve as a living visual, aesthetic, scientific, and intellectual reference for interpretations of our natural landscapes and the roles they have played and continue to play in the development of our nation.  The garden is designed as a seamless iconographic representation of the natural vegetation of the continental United States.  The time period chosen for display is the post-glacial era just after humans arrived in North America (10 to 20 thousand years before the present).  The gradual but persistent growth of the human population through time increasingly altered the natural vegetation of the continent.  These changes, however, were envisioned to be treated in detail in the future National Museum of the American Indian and were not a major subject of the Wilderness Garden.  The proposal won and honorable mention in a national competition.  The award was given by Theresa Heinz (now Kerry) in Washington.