Plant Collections Assessment

Published on June 26, 2024

Pinecrest Gardens conducted a collections assessment study and the findings affirmed that living plants were its greatest institutional assets, the accumulation of many decades of ornamental horticultural history and unique public display.

As the Gardens’ identity has grown and matured, so too have expectations regarding the landscape plantings and facilities. Hand in hand with facilities upgrades and expansion have come the revitalization and expansion of cultivated garden areas. We recognize the importance of horticultural record-keeping and the need for accurate botanical signage to convey information, thus enhancing the visitor experience.

As such, the horticultural team at the Gardens’ has a long-term strategy for collections management that includes identifying and inventorying the Garden’s display plants. The multi-year program aims to compile basic plant information and geographic information system (GIS) location for each plant order to implement a plant records database.

Through these efforts to quantify the Gardens’ plant holdings, and to identify and define collection plants with the intent of making plant information more accessible, the horticultural staff will gain new efficiencies and capabilities to readily identify the many plants that they work with. Through grant funding and private donations, a Collections and Education Assistant has been added to the staff to support the intensive effort needed for comprehensive plant identification and inventory. The Gardens will be beta-testing a new botanical database of the course of a year, one that is expected to make plant information to the public available online. The information being compiled for the database will also facilitate the production of accurate botanical and informational signage to be displayed throughout the Gardens. The collection data will also support the development of horticultural programming for the public.