Nestled in the cool hills of Bathsheba, St Joseph, is one of Barbados’ most treasured spots.
The unique and breathtaking site, one of the island’s oldest attractions, sits on about 8.5 acres of land, consisting of an unmatched assortment of plants. Started more than a century ago, the Andromeda Botanic Gardens has been a place of pleasure and research for people over the years. And while the location has undergone several changes over time, Sharon Cooke, owner of Passiflora Ltd, the operators of the Andromeda Botanic Gardens, says she believes the time has come for that attraction to embark on a new era.
“For me, it is basically a completely new era in terms of visitors,” she declared. Like many businesses across the island, the Andromeda Botanic Gardens, which was entrusted to the Barbados National Trust in the late 1980s, has not been spared the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Barbados TODAY team recently visited the location and chatted with Cooke, who has been managing it since February 2014. Cooke said the pandemic had put a major damper on people visiting the site and forced her to put planned courses on pause. While she understood the lack of tourists during the height of the pandemic, Cooke is eager to see more residents taking advantage of the offering right here in their own backyard.
Last weekend, Cooke officially launched a “free for locals” special, which she said would run “until further notice”.
Sharon Cooke, owner of Passiflora Ltd, the operators of the Andromeda Botanic Gardens.
“Hopefully we will be able to survive. It was never about making money because we don’t, and we never have. It is just about sharing a really undervalued part of our heritage and trying to connect locals to it,” she said.
“We have always tried to encourage locals to come. So even when we started, we had a “free for locals” programme a few times a year – the whole of December, Independence Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day – so we have always tried to encourage locals because we believe heritage belongs to us. It belongs to the people of Barbados,” she declared.
Cooke said she was hoping that making it free for locals to visit would help them to develop a greater appreciation for the natural beauty while helping them to better cope with any stressful situation. The entrance fee was usually $30, and that remains in place for tourists.
“We do the ‘free for locals’ programme so people can come and participate in their heritage. We thought with COVID-19, people are stressed out because it has been a really tough time for everybody,” she said, adding that studies have shown that gardens help to increase joy and decrease depression.
“So this is such a perfect place to relax and recuperate,” she said. “I am from the UK. If you go to the UK and you go to the garden, 95 to 100 per cent of the visitors are English. But in Barbados, 95 to 100 per cent of the visitors are from overseas and I am thinking that is not right. That can’t be right. Why aren’t locals coming to the gardens?” she said.
The garden takes up about 6.5 acres of the property, and is divided into several segments showcasing over 500 species of plants, which include a variety of cacti, flowers, palm trees and fruit trees, among others.
Andromeda Gardens is an ideal picnic spot.
One is able to do a self-guided tour with the help of a guide sheet. It takes approximately one hour to tour the entire garden, which is labelled with the names of the plants.
The location, which has ideal spots for picnics and can host several people at once, even with special COVID-19 protocols in place, has a café and gift shop with a range of locally made items.
“The important thing is that locals come, they enjoy it and they come back,” Cooke declared, as she pointed to several changes over the years.
She said the garden has been home for several interns over the years, including students from universities. “So if you are doing a degree in France you have to spend two months overseas as part of your programme. They come here to study. These are landscape students; there are also MSc students in engineering, for example, so they come and spend two months, but the five who were supposed to come this year cancelled because of COVID-19,” she pointed out.
“But we had students from the Grantley Adams Memorial school at the back end of last year and early this year. So that helped us again to fulfil our teaching mandate,” she explained.
The trained garden designer said she believed authorities could do more to promote all the attractions on the island by sharing their stories.
“Visitors from overseas want more stories. They don’t just want to be entertained. They want a real experience. I think that type of tourism will grow and people will be a little bit more discerning. I think we need to offer not just escapism and entertainment but real stories about our history,” she explained.
The Andromeda Botanic Garden will be hosting a “lockdown session” art exhibition in November, where a number of local artists will have some of their work, created from March of this year, on display.
Cooke said she would continue to look for creative ways to keep the botanical garden in the forefront of the minds of everyone.
“I don’t want to depend on overseas visitors to survive. I rather depend on locals because it is their garden,” she said.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb
