Open Ground Collections of Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden for the Benefit of Botanic and Environmental Education

Botanic gardens with their rich collections and scientific resources have a unique potential that attracts the attention of the society to the problems of preserving biodiversity, ensuring environmental education, conserving nature, providing leisure, serving the place for relaxation and entertainment. One of the oldest Botanic gardens of Russia is the Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden of the Komarov Botanic Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences demonstrates the experience of utilizing the open ground collections for Botanic and environmental education. The experts share various aspects of interaction between a Botanic garden and its visitors. The paper provides examples of excursions and other forms of work on the open ground. The paper analyzes the experience of foreign colleagues related to the motivation for visiting Botanic gardens by different age and social groups. The authors provide data of sociological surveys of visitors and the analysis of their motives to visit the Saint Petersburg Botanic Garden in particular. It also shows the growth of interest in the open ground collections.