On the 2nd December 2020, BCARM (BGANZ Collections And Records Management) held their first online workshop. The purpose of this workshop was to allow members feedback and ideas to expand the group’s role and guide what direction the group takes and what resources would be of value to members.

These are some of the themes or suggestions that horticultural staff made:

• Process/guidance for developing living collection guidelines
• Challenges with processes to define where plants are placed, acquisition records, and protocols for such.
• What information should we record for our living collections?
• Difficulty sourcing rare plants and concern if you might be the only garden with a species
• Want to be involved with a forum
• Keen to share knowledge about propagating rare plants
• Sharing plant material between gardens in the network
• Challenges with importing material
• Risk of losing information without a records system
• Tracking individual accessions (valuable in arboretum setting)
• Working together on plant conservation projects
• Keeping records of short lived plants eg annuals
• Label processes different between gardens – how to make these easier
• Upskilling pest and disease knowledge and management
• Sometimes no records yet in a garden – how to overcome this backlog of work?
• Accessible database that is user friendly

If you missed this workshop, you can watch the recording here or for more information about BCARM please contact Emma Bodley.