National Plant Collection

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The National Plant Collection is a plant conservation scheme in the United Kingdom. Run by Plant Heritage (formerly the National Council for the Conservation of Plants and Gardens), a registered charity, [1] it aims to protect and develop the biological and heritage resource of plants in UK gardens.

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Participating individuals or organisations undertake to document, develop, and preserve a comprehensive collection of one group of plants in trust for the future. Most collections are composed of a related group, for example, a collection of oaks or daffodils. This allows the scheme to develop systematic coverage of cultivated plants in the United Kingdom. A few national collections are of plants introduced by a prolific nursery or plant hunter; for example, the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens and Arboretum hold a collection of Hillier's introductions.

Collection holders voluntarily subscribe to the scheme's ideals and stringent requirements. They come from every sector of horticulture, both amateur and professional.

Almost half of the collections are in private ownership and these include allotments, back gardens and large estates. Just under a third are found in nurseries, which range from large commercial concerns to the small specialist grower. Twenty-one local authorities are involved in the scheme, including Leeds City Council, caring for eleven collections, and Bournemouth Borough Council with their Abelia and Clethra collections.

Universities, agricultural colleges, schools, arboreta (e.g. Bedgebury Pinetum) and botanic gardens (the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Glasgow Botanic Gardens and both Oxford and Cambridge [2] ) all add to the diversity. There are also a number of collections on properties belonging to English Heritage, the National Trust and the National Trust for Scotland, and the Royal Horticultural Society holds 25 National Plant Collections across its five gardens. [3]

See also

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References

  1. "Plant Heritage, registered charity no. 1004009". Charity Commission for England and Wales.
  2. "National Plant Collections". Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Retrieved 31 May 2023.
  3. "National Plant Collections". RHS. Retrieved 31 May 2023.