About the Toolkit
Introduction to the Living Collections Toolkit
Actively managed and curated plant collections are the key feature that distinguishes a botanic garden from other highly managed public parks and gardens. Just as an art gallery is more than a collection of pretty pictures, and zoos are more than a collection of animals – so botanic gardens are more than just pretty plants provided for the purposes of public recreation and enjoyment. Instead, they are valuable scientific, horticultural and cultural resources that allow people to grow, learn about, study and conserve plants. While many botanic gardens are also well-loved recreational spaces, they are much more than this and have an important role to play in plant conservation and public education. And they do this through their plant collections.
Given this, one would assume that the majority of botanic gardens would have an active Living Collections Plan, a document which provides guidance on the purpose and priorities of the collections and how to manage them. In reality this may not be the case. At the 7th Global Botanic Gardens Congress held in Melbourne in 2022, a poll of attendees at a workshop on living collections identified that only around 60% of respondents had a Living Collections Plan. Of those that did have a plan, 25% of respondents didn’t understand how it related to their role. This workshop was weighted towards major city and large botanic gardens, and as such it is safe to assume that for smaller regional botanic gardens the number of gardens with active Living Collections Plans would be much less.
In response to this, Botanic Gardens Australia and New Zealand (BGANZ) have developed this Living Collections Toolkit. The aim of the Toolkit is to assist botanic gardens, directors, managers, curators and horticultural staff in the development and implementation of a formal plan for their plant collections. The Toolkit has been developed to work for gardens of all sizes and at all stages, from small regional gardens with half a horticulturist a week through to major capital city gardens and those being newly established. While the Toolkit is aimed at botanic gardens that do not have a fully developed Living Collections Plan, it also serves as a valuable checklist or reminder for gardens that have well established collection planning documentation and processes.
The Toolkit is broken into two parts. The first part provides guidance on assessing your garden and plant material, and establishing the priorities for your collections. For gardens with well-established collections, this may be all that is required – an opportunity to take a step back and look at what you are collecting and why.
The second part of the Toolkit assists gardens with producing a formal Living Collections Plan. This will talk you through the process, consultation and research you should do, and then through a series of prompts this will produce an individual, personalised Living Collections Plan for your garden. The plan will document what living collections are, the priorities for your particular garden, and makes recommendations on how to manage these collections. This document will be a fully formatted document, able to be shared online or in printed form and able to guide and support your collections. It will also be appropriate for those seeking BGCI Accreditation, or looking to increase understanding and public awareness about your garden and the work you do.
If you think this Living Collections Toolkit may be for you, further information can be found by registering your garden following this link. After registration you will have access to detailed information on the process of developing a Living Collections Plan, access to the Living Collections Assessment Tool and the ability to add your own notes and develop your own Plan. Not everyone will wish to use these tools, and it is fine to register for information purposes only.