Imagine a botanical garden, and acres of carefully designed, highly manicured, delicately pruned “zoos for plants” may come to mind. But at El Charco del Ingenio, a botanical garden and natural protected area in central Mexico, the sprawling scrubland has been allowed to return to its unencumbered, wilder roots.
The approximately 160-acre property, acquired from several different families, had been overgrazed for hundreds of years, according to Mario Arturo Hernández Peña, the park’s director.
“Thirty years ago, people said the only thing that grows here is stones,” Hernández said. But by limiting access, protecting the . . .
