A Legacy of Contribution

By Caroline Scalzo, CGC Horticulturist

To understand the importance of greenspaces in hyper urban environments, imagine yourself in the middle of Reading Road on a hot day. On one side of the street, you find office buildings, parking lots, highway exits, the beloved White Castle—a spectacle of “glass and concrete and stone,” as David Byrne would put it. On the other side, you see a vast open greenspace with 80-year-old trees covering soft, rolling hills of grass and manicured perennial flower gardens that hum with bees and other insects.

Mitigating the Urban Heat Island Effect

If you were to stand in the shade of the concrete jungle on the first side with a thermostat, the temperature would be ten degrees hotter than it would be in the shade of the ginkgo trees at Hauck Botanic Garden across the street. In the winter, the same is true with the cold. In addition to providing the cooling effect we typically associate with them, trees regulate temperature better than concrete in general, so in winter, an area around concrete will be brisker and chillier than an area with tree cover. Our heavy usage of concrete increases our energy consumption, which in turn intensifies our usage of fossil fuels. This is what we call the urban heat island effect and why we keep having to change the climate zones of our highly dense urban areas.

As the Google Map above reveals, the vast urban space from Walnut Hills to Mt. Auburn has very little greenspace to connect Cincinnati’s wildlife corridors. So one way that Hauck Botanic Garden makes a positive contribution to our urban landscape is by breaking up the stretches of concrete and mitigating the disadvantages of the urban landscape by acting as a water, oxygen and wildlife sink.

Managing Stormwater and Mitigating Pollution

The importance of Hauck Botanic Garden is even greater when you look at the development of the area. The original owner of the land Cornelius J. Hauck, a self-taught botanist who wanted to devote the space to finding plants that worked well with pollution. At the time, the area was hyper-industrialized and the smog from the factories left the grounds black with soot, giving the estate the affectionate title “Sooty Acres.” In the years since, Cincinnati Parks and the CGC have worked together to ensure Hauck Botanic Garden remains greenspace into perpetuity for its neighbors—commercial, industrial and residential. 

So what did Hauck know when he was designing his gardens? He probably knew that, in contrast with water-repelling concrete, trees act as huge water sinks because they’re about 50% water and have root systems that act like sponges. So having a highly dense forest area within a city is essential to help mitigate stormwater runoff, which in turn minimizes the amount that our sewer systems overflow into the Ohio River. This contribution to our area is most definitely evident at Hauck Botanic Garden in the early springtime. When the rain feels nonstop and there seems to be a small river running down Reading Road, the runoff flows right into the lower oak landing and pools around the Bald Cypresses, Taxodium distichums, which are known for their ability to grow in swamp-like conditions and hold water.  

While their roots are busy storing water and creating space for it to enter the underground water table, trees’ leaves are busy filtering out pollutants in the air and regulating the atmosphere via stomatal oxygen and carbon dioxide exchanges. It was evident this past summer that during times of heavy smog from forest fires, the movement and intensity of the pollutants was greater in areas without trees. While Hauck still experienced the heavy smog, I can only imagine how much worse the air would have been across the street at the vast open lot devoid void of anything living or breathing.

Hauck Botanic Garden also provides sound absorption from Reading Road and I-71, reducing the level of noise pollution in the area. While it feels almost impossible to dissipate the sounds of sirens and fast traffic in a city, tall trees aid in refracting sound waves even if just by a decibel. Small inner-city greenspaces go much further in helping balance urban sounds than concrete does. Imagine the concrete echo chamber that a city devoid of trees would be.

Providing a Wildlife Corridor

Perhaps the most interesting contributions Hauck makes to our area are the ones where the humans are not the direct beneficiaries. As we’ve incorporated more native plants and diversified the plant species within Hauck, the gardens have come to act as a wildlife corridor for many different plant, bird and bug species.

What’s a wildlife corridor? It’s connected habitat within an urban landscape to help wildlife move through the city as they normally would over the landscape that has not been urbanized. In Cincinnati, Eden Park, Burnett Woods, Mt. Airy and all of the smaller greenspaces in between are important for migration patterns of many bird and insect species.

Helping these creatures migrate helps the health of our forests and, in turn, the health our agricultural system. Taking a step back, we can conclude that by helping the native wildlife around us, we are also helping ourself by creating a more self-sustainable ecosystem to live in—unlike the built urban environment that requires maintenance to continue.

Connecting People with Nature

From the red-tailed hawks that nest on our ten acres to the many butterfly and hummingbird species that snack on our pollinator gardens, attracting wildlife also creates a place for people to connect with nature. Many avid bird and bug enthusiasts enjoy walking our grounds and spotting their favorite species. But even if you aren’t an ornithologist or entomologist, there’s plenty to enjoy at Hauck that the urban environment greatly needs: a space to sit and enjoy the sunshine and—as the common joke goes—“touch some grass.”

As a public park, Hauck Botanic Garden is open to all. The neighbors of and visitors to our grounds get to enjoy a space to be in nature, which is scientifically proven to provide many health benefits, including improved mood and healthier hearts. It’s always a joy to see our regular dog walkers enjoying the park everyday with their pet friends or the summertime yoga group that enjoys some much-needed meditation practice around the circle patio.

This beautiful and beneficial urban greenspace has been loved and cherished by volunteers and community members for over 80 year as a gathering place and a refuge. We at the CGC are committed to keeping it so for the next 80—and beyond!