Conservation

Dahlia 'Dutch Carnival'

Why conserve garden plants?

Plants have always been selected and bred, whether for their beauty, flavour, scent or other reasons. This breeding involves an enormity of human effort and inventiveness that is wasted if the plants cease to be grown.

Climate change, the advance of new pests and diseases, loss of gardens, a diminishing nursery trade and lack of knowledge in the general population all conspire to reduce the diversity of our garden flora. If garden plants go, a tantalising slice of social, cultural and horticultural history dies with them.

Plant Heritage aims to maintain the diversity of our garden plants through the National Plant Collections, our Plant Guardians scheme and our network of local groups.

eg: plant genus, common name, county, collection holder name.