research about botanical garden

18 January 2019

What is a botanic garden?

Maybe dating back to the 4th century bce, the purpose of a botanic garden has changed. sharon willoughby, historian and head of interpretation, explains how kew fits into that journey..

By Sharon Willoughby

We all think we know instinctively what a botanic garden is – a beautiful garden where plants are labelled. 

When you sit down to think about the origins of botanic gardens and the complexity of their changing role through time, definitions become a little slippery and interesting. 

Today many different types of gardens and arboretums cluster underneath the banner of ‘botanic garden’. 

Gardens differ in style, plants, size, age, location, numbers of staff and volunteers, and mission. 

The work of botanic gardens has become more international, so there has been a need for a better definition – and others may wonder ‘what’s the difference between a botanic garden and a park?

Exactly what is a botanic garden?

Today cultivation and preservation, as well as botanical displays and carefully-selected plant collections is what sets a botanic garden apart.

The  International Association of Botanic Gardens  decided in 1963 that a botanic garden is a place  ‘ open to the public in which the plants are labelled’ . (1)

In 2019, Botanic Gardens Conservation Internationals defines a botanic garden having met a list of criteria, either in part of whole, such as:

• Having a reasonable degree of permanence 
• an underlying scientific basis for the collections
• proper documentation of the collections, including wild origin
• monitoring of the plants in the collections 
• adequate labelling of the plants
• open to the public
• communication of information to other gardens, insitutions and the public
• exchange of seed or other materials with other botanic gardens, arboreta or research insitutions
• undertaking of scientific or technical research on plants in the collections 
• maintenance of research programs in plant taxonomy in associate herbaria.(2)

Today, botanic gardens like Kew Gardens and Wakehurst are made up of many parts: scientific institute, collecting museum, herbarium, library, conservation organisation, educational academy, theme park, shop, café, gallery and pleasure garden.

Just like Kew, all modern botanic gardens have a role in plant science, conservation and inspiring the public to appreciate the vital role of plants and fungi to life on Earth.

Where was the first botanic garden?

The origin of botanic gardens and the title of first or oldest is a highly contested title amongst the oldest European gardens.

Most writers agree that the oldest ‘still existing’ botanic gardens date back to the 16th century in the first gardens created to train medical students in plant identification – Physic Gardens. These gardens include Pisa built in 1544, Padua and Florence in 1545.

Others argue that the first true botanic garden to have both ornamental and scientific value was Leidencreated in 1590.(3)

Others say that the garden created by Pope Nicholas IV (1221-1292) in the 13th century is the first.(4)

There may have been earlier gardens that resemble modern botanic gardens in purpose such as the 4th century BCE garden of Aristotle at the Lyceum in Athens.(5)

It is here that Aristotle collected plants sent to him by Alexander the Great.  Theophrastus used the observations he made in the garden to write  Historia Plantarum.

My favourite origin story suggests that Spanish Conquistadores during the conquest of Aztec Mexico in 1519-1521 were inspired by the extensive gardens of Moctezuma at Huaxtepec created in 1467. The idea being that this extensive medicinal garden inspired Renaissance gardens in Europe.(6).

Here in the UK, the first botanic gardens were Oxford Botanic Gardens (1621), the Chelsea Physic Garden (1673) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew created from two royal pleasure gardens in 1759. 

The history of botanic gardens can show a type of progression in role, starting with the physic gardens of the 16th and 17th century, each era reflecting the concerns of its age. (7)

For example, in the 18th century, Kew had a large role in the creation of tropical colonial gardens as the empire spread looking for new plants for commerce and science.

Botanic Gardens in the 18th and 19th century were inspired by the plant research and taxonomy conducted by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus.  Civic Gardens in the 19th and 20th century emphasised the horticultural splendour of their living collections. 

Botanic gardens in the 21st century

Today there are 1,775 botanic gardens in 148 countries world-wide.(8)

Unlike their predecessors, they are primarily concerned with conservation rather than collection.

Botanic gardens are amongst the most visited cultural organisations. And, along with our passionate volunteers and knowledge-hungry visitors, we are an enormous community.

Together, we’re making great strides supporting present and future plant life on planet Earth.

Why not  book a visit to Kew Gardens,  and save when you book online

References:

• Tim Entwhistle. (2018). Talking plants: The top 10 first botanic gardens
• Botanic Gardens Conservation International.(2019). Definition of a botanic garden
• Spencer, R. Cross, R. The origins of botanic gardens and their relation to plant science, with special reference to hortiulctural botany and cultivated plant taxonomy.   Muelleria, 35: 43-93.Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.
• Rutherford, S (2015),  Botanic Gardens,  Oxford and New York: Shire Publications p.9. & Piazzoni, A.M., Morello, G and Bernardi, G. (2016).  Guide to the Vatican Gardens. History, Art and Nature.  Rome, Italy: Logart Press. p.10.
• Pascoe, G. (2012)  'Long Views & Short Vistas': Victoria's Nineteenth-Century Public Botanic Gardens .  North Melbourne, Victoria: Australian Scholarly, p2. & Mueller, Baron F.v.   (1871) The Objects of a Botanic Garden in Relation to Industries: A Lecture delivered at the Industrial and Technological Museum Melbourne',  Melbourne. and Hill, A.W, Missour Botanic Gardens, The History and Function of Botanic Gardens .
• Rutherford, S (2015).  Botanic Gardens,  Oxford and New York: Shire Publications p.9
• Rinker, H.B. (2002). ActionBioscience. The Weight of a Petal: The Value of Botanical Gardens
• Botanic Gardens Conservation International.(2019). The History of Botanic Gardens

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Botanical gardens as valuable resources in plant sciences

• Review Paper
• Published: 02 January 2020
• Volume 31 , pages 2905–2926, ( 2022 )

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• Leila Faraji 1 &
• Mojtaba Karimi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4598-0172 2  

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Botanical gardens are collections of plants cultivated in a closed space to be utilized for scientific inquiry, recreation, conservation, botanical and horticultural education and also for public landscape aesthetics. Due to their richness in plant diversity and also their facilities, botanical gardens can have remarkable roles in agricultural studies and plant sciences. In addition, botanical gardens are very important regarding to their roles in creating green space in urban spaces, tourist attractions, economical objects and well-being aspects of peoples. Accordingly, in this study, the roles of botanical gardens were reviewed regarding to biodiversity and genetic studies, seed science, plant protection, soil and water researches, ecological evaluation, climate change, research and educations. These topics were also discussed regarding to their usage in agriculture and plant science studies. Furthermore, some scientific potentials of botanical gardens for future studies have been also taken into account.

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Faraji, L., Karimi, M. Botanical gardens as valuable resources in plant sciences. Biodivers Conserv 31 , 2905–2926 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01926-1

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Harnessing the power of botanical gardens: Evaluating the costs and resources needed for exceptional plant conservation

Megan philpott.

1 Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife, Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Cincinnati Ohio, USA

Valerie C. Pence

Burgund bassüner.

2 Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis Missouri, USA

Ashley S. Clayton

3 Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square Pennsylvania, USA

Emily E. D. Coffey

4 Southeastern Center for Conservation, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta Georgia, USA

Jason L. Downing

5 Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Miami Florida, USA

Christine E. Edwards

Raquel folgado.

6 The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino California, USA

Jason J. Ligon

Christy powell.

7 San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, San Diego California, USA

Joseph Francis Ree

Alexandra e. seglias.

8 Department of Research and Conservation, Denver Botanic Gardens, Denver Colorado, USA

Nellie Sugii

9 Hawaiian Rare Plant Program, Harold L. Lyon Arboretum, Honolulu Hawai'i, USA

Peter J. Zale

Jacob zeldin.

10 Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe Illinois, USA

Associated Data

The detailed cost and points breakdown for this study is available in the Supporting Information as Appendix  S1 .

The effective ex situ conservation of exceptional plants, whether in living collections or cryo‐collections, requires more resources than the conservation of other species. Because of their expertise with rare plants, botanical gardens are well positioned to lead this effort, but a well‐developed strategy requires a clear understanding of the resources needed.

Grant funding was obtained from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to support a three‐year project on cryobanking, and to provide smaller grants to 10 other botanical gardens for one‐year projects on either (1) seed behavior studies or (2) the development of protocols for in vitro propagation or cryopreservation.

Nine of the partner gardens worked on 19 species (one was unable to continue due to the COVID‐19 pandemic), while the larger project focused on 14 species. A point system was developed for tasks accomplished, and the average costs per point of the larger and smaller projects were similar. Labor accounted for half the costs. Projects focused on species in the Asteraceae and Orchidaceae had lower costs per point than other species.

Both large and small projects can contribute to a strategy for exceptional plant conservation for similar costs. Prioritizing species with lower costs could help advance the field while allowing time for work on more difficult species to develop.

Exceptional plant species are those that cannot be conserved ex situ using conventional seed‐banking methods, instead requiring conservation as living collections or cryo‐collections, i.e., seeds or tissues stored in liquid nitrogen (LN) in cryobanks (Pence et al.,  2022a ). It is estimated that exceptional species number in the tens of thousands (Wyse and Dickie,  2017 ; Colville and Pritchard,  2019 ) and, as such, present a distinct challenge to the plant conservation community. While some groups of taxa are being organized into coordinated living collections, or metacollections, in botanical gardens (Fant et al.,  2016 ; Westwood et al.,  2021 ), limitations of space and resources mean the majority of threatened exceptional taxa will likely require LN storage, a method that has been shown to be effective for a variety of tissues from a wide range of species (Reed,  2008 ; Pence et al.,  2020 ; Walters and Pence,  2020 ). Depending on the type of exceptionality, cryopreserved propagules can include seeds, embryos, dormant buds, or in vitro tissue cultures of shoot tips or somatic embryos.

Implementing cryostorage as a method for exceptional species conservation will require the harnessing of expertise and infrastructure for research in various areas, including seed biology, to determine whether seed behavior is exceptional; in vitro biology, to recover cryopreserved embryos or generate in vitro shoot tips or somatic embryos for banking; and cryopreservation. While the costs for these approaches will be greater than conventional seed banking, evaluating the actual costs and required resources is difficult because of the different types of exceptionality, the wide variation in species responses to these methods, and the resulting variation in the time and resources needed to tailor protocols to individual species. Understanding these costs is nevertheless critical for developing meaningful and workable strategies to meet the challenges of conserving these species.

Botanical gardens are well positioned for work in species conservation. While historically botanical gardens focused on taxonomy and plant discovery, the development of the field of conservation biology and the rise in threats to plant biodiversity worldwide have resulted in a more recent shift in focus to conservation science and research for many gardens (Smith,  2019 ). With an estimated 3269 botanical gardens and arboreta worldwide (Mounce et al.,  2017 ), many institutions have begun to utilize their unique knowledge of plant propagation and access to collections in efforts to further our basic understanding of plant biology, in situ conservation, restoration and reintroduction, and public outreach and education, as well as to influence public policy (BGCI,  2022a ).

The United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity's Global Strategy for Plant Conservation Target 8 stipulated that at least 75% of threatened plant species be maintained in ex situ collections (Convention on Biological Diversity,  2012 ). Botanic gardens significantly contribute to achieving this target, particularly through their development of significant living collections and seed banks, as well as research programs focused on threatened species (Smith and Pence,  2017 ; Liu et al.,  2020 ; Westwood et al.,  2021 ). Many may also have relevant infrastructure and expertise available, although it may not currently be directed at exceptional species conservation (Havens et al.,  2006 ). Finding ways to engage existing expertise and infrastructure within botanical gardens would increase the efficiency of any strategies developed for exceptional plants. A recent analysis indicated that very few known exceptional species are currently conserved in vitro or in cryopreserved collections (Pence et al.,  2022b ).

Infrastructure, training, and funding have long been identified as major impediments to the expansion of conservation research in botanical gardens, but there has been little study into the required resources or most efficient methods for increasing capacity (Havens et al.,  2006 ). To address this, the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden's Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife (CREW) received funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to develop cryopreservation protocols for a group of exceptional species from Hawai'i initiated into culture at the Lyon Arboretum (University of Hawai'i, Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA), as well as to provide small, one‐year grants to 10 U.S. botanical gardens to begin or continue the evaluation of seed behavior or protocol development for one or more exceptional species. Projects ranged from testing whether seeds were short lived using accelerated aging to developing tissue culture and/or cryopreservation protocols for confirmed exceptional species. The recorded metrics included costs, time, outcomes, and challenges. The structure of this exercise provided an opportunity to compare two approaches: a major investment into one institution and project, and the dissemination of small seed grants to multiple institutions. The lessons learned from these projects lend insight into the needs of conservation practitioners and approaches that might be used to develop effective strategies for conserving exceptional plant species.

Grant funding and partner gardens

A grant from the IMLS was received by the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden to develop cryopreservation protocols for several species that had been initiated into in vitro culture in the Micropropagation Lab at the Lyon Arboretum and to bank multiple genotypes of these species in LN in CREW's CryoBioBank. In addition, funds were provided for projects in 10 partner gardens. These gardens were invited to present proposals for projects involving exceptional plant species, either (1) evaluating seed behavior to identify exceptional status; (2) developing an in vitro propagation protocol, which would be needed to provide tissues for, or recovery from, cryopreservation; or (3) developing a cryopreservation procedure for either seeds or tissues. The partners were then each awarded US$5000 to undertake the project over the course of a year, to be used per the grantee's discretion. The 10 gardens were located across the United States and included: Atlanta Botanical Garden (Atlanta, Georgia), Chicago Botanic Garden (Glencoe, Illinois), Denver Botanic Gardens (Denver, Colorado), Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Coral Gables, Florida), Henry Doorly Zoo (Omaha, Nebraska), The Huntington Art Museum, Library, and Botanical Gardens (San Marino, California), Longwood Gardens (Kennett Square, Pennsylvania), Lyon Arboretum (Honolulu, Hawai'i), Missouri Botanical Garden (St. Louis, Missouri), and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (San Diego, California).

Data collection and analysis

At the conclusion of the grant period, each garden was asked to respond to a survey regarding their species of concern, the methods used over the course of the project, detailed cost breakdowns (including both cost breakdowns within the $5000 seed grant and costs incurred beyond the grant; Appendix  S1 ), staff labor hours, outcomes, and challenges encountered. Data were compiled across institutions and analyzed using R version 4.1.0 (R Core Team,  2021 ). Graphics were generated using the R package ggplot2 (Wickham,  2016 ).

Outcome analysis

In order to elucidate the impacts of varying levels of funding and resource allocation, outcomes were classified according to the three areas of work and assigned points as described in Box  1 . Points were assigned for developing protocols contributing to these outcomes. Because the development of in vitro protocols involves several types of research, initiation/multiplication, in vitro rooting or somatic embryo germination, and acclimatization, these were considered separately. If a protocol was developed, this was assigned one point. A half point was assigned for research that increased knowledge but did not yet result in a finished protocol. In addition, each target exceptional species genotype (for tissues) or maternal line (for seeds) banked in a cryobank was assigned a half point. The costs per point were assessed using the total costs for each project.

Points assigned for steps in identifying exceptional plant status through seed behavior analysis, developing protocols for preparing in vitro tissues and recovering plants, and developing cryopreservation protocols and implementing the protocols for long‐term cryo‐storage.

Total costs.

Nine of the 10 partner gardens completed projects; one was unable to finish because of the COVID‐19 pandemic. The nine gardens used a total of $155,650 to improve ex situ conservation methods for 19 different target exceptional plant species. Five of the nine institutions used funds beyond the $5000 seed grant, with the additional funds pulled primarily from their institutional resources, although one garden included funds from the Center for Plant Conservation and another from private donations. One garden used the IMLS seed money as leverage to obtain much larger funding for the project that allowed for the hiring of a temporary full‐time staff member. Because these funds were then combined with the IMLS seed money, this garden (Garden 9) is considered separately in our analysis.

Seven of the eight partners provided a breakdown of costs, of which nearly half were allocated toward labor (49.58%) with the next largest proportion spent on supplies (31.66%; Figure  1 ). All nine institutions provided the hours of labor dedicated to the project. Gardens 1–8 contributed 2536 h, while the addition of a full‐time position for Garden 9 increased the total to 5396 h for the entire group.

Percentage of total costs by cost type. Costs are displayed as percentages of the total costs, including any costs incurred beyond the initial seed grant.

Taxonomy of studied species

The variety of species studied was wide, with nine of the 19 target species in the Orchidaceae family, two species in the Asteraceae, and the remaining eight species from a range of plant families (Amborellaceae, Apocynaceae, Asparagaceae, Brassicaceae, Fagaceae, Orobanchaceae, Polemoniaceae, and Polygalaceae; Figure  2 ). According to the NatureServe ( 2021 ) Global (G) rankings, of the 19 species, three were considered to have a G2 (imperiled) status, seven were G3 (vulnerable), five were G4 (apparently secure), one was G5 (secure), and three were not assessed.

Total number of species in each family studied by partner gardens.

Challenges identified

Most gardens (5/9) cited propagule acquisition as a challenge in working with their species, followed by issues of contamination (4/9) and a lack of information about species (4/9). Two gardens cited the COVID‐19 pandemic as a challenge. Other challenges identified included a difficulty identifying potential partnerships, invasive species, lack of funding, natural disasters, population dynamics, slow propagule growth, tissue browning, small population size, and training.

Outcomes achieved

While only one‐third (3/9) of surveyed gardens stated that the grant increased the work they did on exceptional species, all gardens expressed an intention to continue working with exceptional species in general. The gardens collaborated with a variety of other institutions on the funded projects, including one additional botanical garden; a university; a high school; and a variety of local, state, and federal natural resource agencies.

The number of outcome points achieved over the course of the project per partner garden ranged from 0.5 to 6. The costs per point ranged from $1716 to $10,277, with an average cost per point of $3517. The project that had obtained substantial additional funding for a full‐time position had a cost per point of $43,530. The overarching grant project managed by CREW was included as a comparison of differences in funding structures. CREW's project involved developing in vitro propagation and cryopreservation protocols and banking samples for 14 endangered exceptional Hawaiian species that had been initiated into culture at the Lyon Arboretum. Grant funding for the project at CREW was $208,800 over three years, with 7961 documented staff hours and 39 total outcome points achieved over the course of the project, resulting in an average cost per point of $5354.

This study provided a real‐world exercise for evaluating the costs and resources needed for the ex situ conservation of exceptional plant species, specifically for those approaches focused on identifying exceptional behavior in seeds, initiating in vitro cultures, and cryopreserving seeds or tissues. This was done by funding smaller projects dealing with 1–4 species each, as well as a larger project focused on 14 species. Participants in the smaller projects were allowed to work on a project of their choosing, and thus the projects differed widely in the types of protocols studied and the methods used (Seglias,  2022 ; Zale et al.,  2022 ). This situation reflects the variety of exceptional species requiring attention, the variety of challenges they pose, and the differences in laboratory approaches and expertise, although it also presents a challenge in comparing projects. The seed grant projects were compared with the investment made into one lab with a full‐time staff person over three years, who worked to adapt cultures initiated in another lab to cryopreservation protocols and to bank multiple genotypes of those cultures. Using the point system developed for this project to attempt to measure the effort invested into the different types of activities, the costs per point were similar for both types of projects; the multiple smaller grants had an average cost per point of $3517, compared with $5354 for the larger project dealing with multiple species.

There have been other estimates of the costs of initiating and maintaining in vitro collections and of cryobanking plant seeds and tissues, particularly for crop species, including coffee ( Coffea L. spp.) (Dulloo et al.,  2009 ), temperate fruit trees and cassava ( Manihot esculenta Crantz) (Reed et al.,  2004 ), garlic ( Allium sativum L.) (Keller et al.,  2013 ), banana ( Musa acuminata Colla) (Panis et al.,  2020 ), and potato ( Solanum tuberosum L.) (Keller et al.,  2013 ). It is often difficult to compare these costs because of the differences in explant type, differences in the number of subcultures necessary to obtain tissues for cryobanking, and previous work on the species (Pence,  2011 ; Keller et al.,  2013 ). Labor is often cited as the largest portion of the total costs (Keller et al.,  2013 ), which was also true in our study. In addition, most previous analyses have been performed on economically important species about which much is known, and for which there are often established in vitro and cryopreservation protocols. A 2011 cost estimate for the development of a protocol for cryopreserving the embryos or tissues of wild threatened species was about $2000 (Pence,  2011 ), slightly lower than the averages obtained from the tracking performed in the current project, and generally higher than those given for cryopreserving crop species.

The development of an in vitro or cryopreservation protocol for a new species is unpredictable in terms of the investment in time and resources that will be required. Our point system deals with the individual steps in a complete protocol, rather than the finalized method, reflecting the realities of research, which deals with each of these steps in succession. Each step can present different challenges, which vary by species. Some species present very little issue; for example, one project dealt with developing an in vitro protocol for a threatened species within the Asteraceae, Cirsium hillii Fernald, resulting in a full in vitro propagation procedure, including initiation/multiplication, rooting, and acclimatization, for one of the lowest costs in this study, $1716 per point. This likely reflects the fact that many Asteraceae species have been successfully propagated in vitro (Abraham and Thomas,  2016 ), suggesting that a number of these species adapt well to in vitro manipulation. However, although the initiation of cultures of several Quercus L. species has been reported (Ballesteros and Pritchard,  2020 ), oaks are known to be difficult to initiate in vitro and the rates of initiation are often low (Kramer and Pence,  2012 ; Brennan et al.,  2017 ; Winkeljohn et al.,  2022 ). This is reflected in the higher cost per point ($43,530) in a project dealing with Q. dumosa Nutt.

The differential response to in vitro propagation or cryopreservation was observed with other species, resulting in the differences in costs for these studies. Orchids are another group for which there has been a significant amount of in vitro research reported in the literature (Chugh et al.,  2009 ). The three projects focused on orchids (excluding the project used to leverage further funds) ranked lower in cost, ranging from $1579 to less than $3600 per point (the latter project on orchids also included a non‐orchid and the costs were not separated). These projects involved testing the effects of media on in vitro germination (Zale et al.,  2022 ), as well as some testing of the seeds for tolerance to cryopreservation and banking, and these types of projects benefited from both the large volume of literature available on orchid seed germination in vitro and the large number of seeds available for experimental treatments (Kauth et al.,  2008 ; Jolman et al.,  2022 ). In addition, one garden working with orchid seeds noted that, although much of the cryopreservation work was dependent on full‐time skilled labor, some components, such as curation, viability testing, and data collection, could be done by trained volunteers and students, which helped to offset costs and scale up the work. On the other hand, of the four projects exceeding $5000 (the amount provided by the IMLS grant for the project) per point, one required the purchase of equipment for the project (Seglias,  2022 ) and three dealt with species that appear to be particularly difficult to initiate into culture: Alyxia stellata (J. R. Forst. & G. Forst.) Roem. & Schult. was challenging to sterilize, Polygala lewtonii Small had limited material with reduced viability, and Q. dumosa showed severe browning in culture.

One additional benefit to the structure of this project was the built‐in element of collaboration between the participating institutions. By coming together for a meeting and discussion at the onset of the project, researchers were able to pool knowledge resources on best practices before undertaking their individual projects. A similar meeting at the conclusion of the project to share successes and challenges led to the analysis of costs and necessary resources presented here. This model of open communication and collaboration between practitioners in exceptional plant conservation could increase efficiency in exceptional plant research by building on shared knowledge and reducing duplication efforts. For effective conservation in any species, open communication and collaboration is key.

Unsurprisingly, roughly half of all costs went toward labor, with more than one‐third going toward supplies, and the rest to other expenses. This demonstrates the need for increased funding and training in the field for exceptional plant conservation specialists. Most of the participating gardens already had some infrastructure for their exceptional plant conservation projects, from seed‐testing facilities, to tissue‐culture labs, to a source of LN; however, using additional funds, one lab purchased equipment for seed work for this project, which it is continuing to use (Seglias,  2022 ). The supply costs would necessarily increase for a lab just starting in exceptional species research, as it would have to build the necessary infrastructure for these specialized techniques. Of the over 3758 botanical gardens providing information to Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI)'s Garden Search, 177 indicate that they have tissue culture/micropropagation facilities (BGCI,  2022b ). For such labs, labor and supplies will be the primary costs.

This study demonstrates that a nominal investment of funds can help increase primary research and method development for exceptional species and their effective conservation, even if full protocols are not achieved immediately. With a relatively low investment of $5000 per partner garden ($45,000 total), the ex situ conservation needs of 19 exceptional species were furthered, in some cases by leveraging or obtaining additional funds. While one goal of this project was to facilitate research on exceptional plants, an overarching goal was to provide additional supporting information to guide the development of strategies for exceptional plant conservation. To that end, several points can be made from this work, as outlined below.

Expand networking and information

Participants were asked to discuss the challenges they encountered over the course of the projects, and two major categories emerged: a lack of information on target species and a lack of networking and partnerships. These are two of the three major challenges to exceptional plant conservation that were identified in 2013 in the Dunedin Statement of Need ( https://cincinnatizoo.org/system/assets/uploads/2019/02/Dunedin-statement-of-need.pdf ). Propagule acquisition was the specific challenge most commonly mentioned by the collaborating group in the present project, which could potentially be alleviated by increased partnerships and collaboration, particularly with field botanists. Avenues for networking need to be increased; however, the BGCI's Global Conservation Consortia ( https://www.globalconservationconsortia.org/ ), the Exceptional Plant Conservation Network ( http://cincinnatizoo.org/epcn ), and regional conservation networks such as the Center for Plant Conservation ( http://saveplants.org ) and the Australian Network for Plant Conservation ( https://www.anpc.asn.au/ ), among others, provide platforms for such networking and should be utilized more fully for facilitating exceptional plant research and increasing training opportunities.

A lack of information underlies a number of other challenges that were identified, specifically contamination, lack of basic research on the target species, slow propagule growth, and tissue browning. These are common challenges when dealing with wild species (Benson,  2000 ; Dong et al.,  2016 ; Quambusch and Winkelmann,  2018 ; Volk et al.,  2022 ) and underscore the need for a greater understanding of the basic biology of a species in areas of seed behavior, in vitro growth, and responses to cryopreservation. While most protocols in the literature have been developed for species of economic importance, not all of these methods are easily transferred to wild species, particularly those unrelated to crop species and about which little is known. Facilitating more research in protocol development, particularly for rare taxa, can add to the body of information to support future work.

Leverage species that are most adaptable to conservation methods

The differences in the outcomes for the species under study in this project suggest that investments into congeners of better‐known species in families such as the Asteraceae and Orchidaceae may provide the most rapid return on investment, as work progresses more slowly on more poorly understood or “difficult” species. In a recent analysis, there were 802 threatened congeners of exceptional species in these two families, and these should be prioritized for research (Pence et al.,  2022b ). Additionally, testing for seed longevity and work with orchid seeds will likely require less investment per species than taxa such as Quercus species or other trees. While work on the latter is critical, developing a strategy to target efforts to those species that can most quickly benefit can help in building infrastructure and networks that can then deal with the more challenging taxa.

Maximize infrastructure and expertise

This project compared outcomes from small seed grants and a larger investment in one lab and highlighted the benefits of each. Small grants may be particularly useful for evaluating seed behaviors and developing protocols for threatened under‐studied species, particularly if students, volunteers, and academic partners can be enlisted, as they were in some of these projects. Our project also brought these institutions together to discuss their projects, challenges, and results, which promoted networking within the group. For institutions with the resources to allocate dedicated staff specifically to exceptional plant research, larger projects might center on developing protocols to scale to bank multiple species and genotypes. Such projects will likely be collaborative as well, as was the case with the collaboration between CREW and the Lyon Arboretum. The work at CREW was based on a large body of work at the Lyon Arboretum, which provided the cultures that served as the basis for culture multiplication, cryopreservation, and banking. Thus, these outcomes all point to a model for exceptional plant conservation that leverages the infrastructure and various areas of expertise of both small and larger programs in botanical gardens, perhaps developing protocols in the former and undertaking more large‐scale propagation and banking in the latter.

The efficiencies of conserving exceptional plants is a primary challenge and will not be equivalent to those of seed banking; however, projects such as this one can provide a basis for developing more efficient strategies for dealing with the conservation of the thousands of plant species that are predicted to be exceptional. This study illustrates that a relatively small investment can make a significant difference, and further investment into both large and small projects is needed to advance the science and the collaborations necessary to meet the challenge of exceptional plant conservation.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

M.P. and V.C.P. contributed results, analyzed data, and wrote the manuscript. B.B., A.S.C., E.E.D.C., J.L.D., C.E.E., R.F., J.J.L., C.P., J.F.R., A.E.S., N.S., P.J.Z., and J.Z. contributed results and comments to the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Supporting information

Acknowledgments.

The authors acknowledge the Institute of Museum and Library Services for providing funding for these projects (award no. MG‐30‐17‐0055‐17); Kay Havens (Chicago Botanic Garden), Andrea Kramer (Chicago Botanic Garden), Rebecca Hufft (Denver Botanic Gardens), and Jennifer Neale (Denver Botanic Gardens) for the administration of individual projects; and Caleb Dvorak (Missouri Botanical Garden), Luce Echeverria (Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden), Tim Hoehn‐Boydston (San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance), Kathryn Ryan (San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance), and Maribeth Stafford (Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden) for project assistance; as well as The MillionOrchidProject, The Fairchild Challenge, BioTECH @ Richmond Heights High School (Miami, Florida), and the Hawai'i Plant Extinction Prevention Program.

Philpott, M. , Pence V. C., Bassüner B., Clayton A. S., Coffey E. E. D., Downing J. L., Edwards C. E., et al. 2022. Harnessing the power of botanical gardens: Evaluating the costs and resources needed for exceptional plant conservation . Applications in Plant Sciences 10 ( 5 ): e11495. 10.1002/aps3.11495 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

This article is part of the special issue “Meeting the Challenge of Exceptional Plant Conservation: Technologies and Approaches.”

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In 1859, the same year the Missouri Botanical Garden opened to the public, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species , opening the door to a new era of scientific discovery. Since then the Garden has become a world leader in systematics - the study of plants and their evolution.

Plants are essential to sustaining the stability and quality of human life on this planet. At the Missouri Botanical Garden, we have dedicated ourselves to helping conserve biological diversity while there is still something left to protect. Our research provides scientific information essential to decision makers, from conservation and land use to social and environmental policy. We have taken the lead in making information widely accessible via the Internet, maintaining the world's largest botanical database and the premier botanical website, TROPICOS . Garden scientists conduct the most productive and geographically widespread botanical research program in the world.

Explore our plant scientists' work here and around the world.  Learn more

Learn how partnerships with institutions in host nations are essential to our work.  Learn more

Go behind the science of organizing plant specimens.  Learn more

Discover the untapped potential of plants and the Garden's role in this process.  Learn more

Plant Conservation and the Sustainable Goals

Nine Visions of 2050 as Depicted by Science Fiction

How much do you know about the link between science and literature, openmind books, scientific anniversaries, fanny hesse, the mother of bacterial cultures, featured author, latest book, the history of botanical gardens: living museums and research centres.

Created to conserve and exhibit the exotic species coming from the ‘new’ continents, botanical centres are reinventing themselves to catalogue and save the plant wealth of the planet.

In her 2016 book “Lab Girl”, Hope Jahren, professor of geobiology at the University of Oslo , says that she chose not to study the sea because “it is a lonely and empty place”. According to her data, there is six hundred times more life on the land than in the sea, the cause of which is mainly due to the age-old and silent work of plants. She cites, for example, the case of the protected forests in the western United States, her country of origin, where 80 billion trees grow; that is, for every American there are more than 200 trees. Jahren also makes a request: open the window and look out; do you see any plants?

While a negative response is unlikely, it is possible that if the window looks out over a contemporary cityscape, the view could be somewhat monotonous: slender banana plants in the streets, red-flowered geraniums in spring… The number of species in our cities pales in comparison to the overwhelming and diverse wonders of plant life that survive on the planet despite the strong pressure they have been under for too many decades. Science, however, has devised a way of compensating for this, shall we say, urban plant uniformity, by creating true paradises in the midst of stone and asphalt : botanical gardens. Living museums.

The first botanical garden to be created with an early vocation for research, that is, with the idea of doing something that would lead to new knowledge beyond the simple cultivation of plants, which is obviously very old, or creating a place of leisure, was the botanical garden of the University of Pisa in 1544, at the height of the Renaissance. Many followed, most of them in Italy like those in Padua or Florence, and from there they spread to the rest of Europe. The initial objective was the cultivation of medicinal and food plants and the exotic species that explorers began to bring back with them from their overseas voyages, and to investigate their properties.

The evolution of a garden

Since then, one of the most significant features of these gardens is the evolution that botanical science has undergone over the last 150 years. While the science was initially limited to an anatomical description of the plant, classifying it according to the standards developed by Charles Linnaeus in the 18th century , identifying it and, as far as possible, assigning it certain characteristics, today’s botanists ask themselves not only if a species is new or not, but also what relationship it has with others, how it has arrived at a certain place and how it has evolved. “ This is what is called evolutionary research, which helps us to understand how life appeared and how it has become diversified, how more and more differences have appeared between living beings, always in order to adapt better to the environments in which they are found ,” explains Esteban Manrique Reol, director of the Royal Botanical Garden (Madrid), which opened in 1781 under the reign of Charles III of Spain and currently operates as a research centre of the Spanish National Research Council.

The laboratories in botanical gardens have gone from being well equipped with magnifying glasses and microscopes to nowadays even having PCR machines ( so sadly current these days ) to amplify genes and make comparisons, as well as electron microscopes and similar instruments of the so-called molecular method, which allow botanists to see details that until now have been hidden from the human eye.

Current research also requires a lot of going out into the field: “Many plants are threatened because the environment is so constraining on their way of life that they lose their ability to reproduce, to produce seed or at least viable seed. Given that the evolutionary process is very slow, if we are suffering from very rapid environmental changes, such as climate change or pollution… there are many species that are disappearing before they can adapt to these new changes,” explains Manrique.

Saving threatened plants and digitizing their vast collections

Thus, today’s botanists seek out these plants at risk to find those that are most viable, and establish methods to reproduce them in situ in the gardens themselves. From there, the aim is to find seeds and create new fertile plants in the so-called germplasm bank so that, if necessary, they can be returned to their original populations where they are disappearing.

Botanical gardens have a collection of living plants, but also herbaria: collections of plants or parts of plants —dead, dried and identified— that can often be many hundreds of years old. For their conservation —the problem is that insects or fungi eat them— the methods of conservators have evolved from the application of insecticides to the current technique of freezing; all the plants that enter or are exchanged between herbariums spend at least one or two weeks at –20°C before being incorporated into the collection.

Finally, like so many institutions, gardens are rushing to digitise their collections and archives so that researchers from all over the world can consult them. To date, the Royal Botanical Garden (Madrid) has digitised some 800,000 herbarium specimens from its total of about 1,300,000. Meanwhile, all the marvels of the 18th century botanical plate archive, drawn by the great botanical explorers such as José Celestino Mutis, a pioneer of this discipline in Spain and Latin America, are already on display in the digital world for anyone who needs more than the view from their window.

Eugenia Angulo

@eugenia_angulo, related publications.

• Linnaeus and the Feat of Ordering Nature
• Zealandia and the Mystery of the Origin of Flowers
• Plants, the Root of the Earth's Health Problem

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Environment, leading figures, mathematics, scientific insights, more publications about ventana al conocimiento (knowledge window), comments on this publication.

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Science & Research

Botanic gardens are built on a foundation of scientific inquiry. From investigating and conserving plants in the wild to horticultural research, science is integral to all activities at the Gardens.

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Living plant collections form the core of any botanic garden. Knowledge about the collections is gained through research.

We play a critical role in the conservation, preservation and documentation of plants and fungi by serving as an active center of biodiversity research.

The community science approach joins professional researchers and community members to co-create research questions, collect data and analyze results.

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Plant materials are made available for research projects affiliated with universities and other research institutions all over the world. Each year the Garden provides plants or plant parts in support of dozens of projects. The documented wild origin of much of the collection is a great asset for phylogenetic studies.

Protocol for requesting research plant materials

If you wish to request plant material please fill out the request form and mail, fax (510-642-5045) or e-mail it to the Curator .

If the species you need are not in the Garden collection, you may contact the curator for suggestions for other sources. In addition, there is a multi-site web search tool hosted by the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh that you can search for species in several garden collections simultaneously.

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The University of California Botanical Garden is one of the largest and oldest botanical gardens in the United States. The garden’s well-documented collection occupies 13 hectares and includes more than 12,000 taxa representing 305 plant families. Specimens are arranged by continent of origin, with approximately four hectares devoted to California native plants

A primary purpose of the garden is to facilitate scientific research. In addition to circulating a biennial seed list, we welcome requests for research material at any time.

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The Southeastern Center for Conservation is a keystone of the Garden. From plant conservation research to education outreach, the C enter is a hub for partners in  conservation and research.

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The Garden’s Conservation & Research staff works on an international scale to improve the ecological stability of rare, threatened and endangered plants, and their habitats.

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The Atlanta Botanical Garden works in partnership to conserve imperiled plants and natural communities. Its multi-faceted approach blends rigorous field-based plant rescue and habitat rehabilitation with state-of-the-art molecular research, integrating the work of natural resource managers, student interns, and citizen-scientists into native plant conservation across the Southeast.

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Go behind the scenes with in-house experts to learn more about plant conservation and research in Plant Intel , the Garden magazine focused on connecting people with plants.

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Flowers are blooming all across the Garden as spring comes to New York City's most beautiful landscape. Follow along using our bloom trackers, and discover our collections in some of their most colorful annual displays.

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Plant People —a new podcast from NYBG and PRX Productions featuring NYBG’s CEO & President, Jennifer Bernstein—connects the dots between nature and humanity through lively conversations with plant scientists and curators, gardeners and naturalists, and other experts. Join us as we dig into the many ways we rely on plants to thrive—and what we can do to return the favor.

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Join us for a celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month programs at NYBG! Take part in on-site tours, programs on the traditional Japanese floral art of Ikebana, displays of Chinese poetry, and more.

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Ready to set off on your journey into the plant world? Dig into NYBG’s world-class Continuing Education offerings—now with flexible online courses available anywhere, anytime, for busy plant lovers.

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There’s something new to discover at the Garden each and every season, and as a Member, you can experience it all year round, as often as you’d like—with free admission and exclusive benefits.

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Kids grow their love of nature at NYBG! From camps that get them outside to explore the wonders of the plant world, to drop-in activities harvesting veggies and planting seedlings, young botanists get their start here.

Check out NYBG Shop’s curated selection of rare plants, home decor, gardening tools, books, and garden-inspired gifts. All purchases support our work in science, horticulture, and education.

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Recent articles, 2022 research & conservation intern experiences.

In the Summer of 2022, Ulysses Oles, Lezlie Dominguez, Basil Gaffney, and Sarah Butler were

Botanical Art = Botanical Science

The history of civilization can be told through pictures of plants. The roots of botanical art and the science of botany began in ancient Greek and Roman times, depicting plants as a means of understanding and recording their potential uses.

Texas Star Mushroom now State Mushroom of Texas

The rare and rather unique, star-shaped fungus with the Latin name Chorioactis geaster received official designation this

Sean Lahmeyer of the Huntington Herbarium

As part of the Library’s Collection Lens series, BRIT Librarian, Brandy Watts, interviews Sean Lahmeyer of the Huntington Herbarium who discusses the history of the collection and its growth through the years.

Alejandra Vasco, Ph.D.

Research botanist, ashley bales, herbarium collections manager, barney l. lipscomb, director of brit press and library, leonhardt chair of texas botany, brooke byerley best, ph.d., director of texas plant conservation, bob o’kennon, research scientist, carly brock, press sales and fulfillment coordinator, craig meyer, herbarium digitization technician, erin flinchbaugh, research administrative assistant, director of biodiversity informatics, jessica lane, herbarium collections coordinator.

Jessica started working with the Philecology Herbarium as an intern...

Kay Hankins

Seed bank conservation botanist, kelly carroll, kimberlie sasan, herbarium & research assistant, krishna shenoy, independent contractor, sherwin carlquist digitization project, manuela dal forno, ph.d., morgan gostel, ph.d., natch azure, peter fritsch, ph.d., vice president of research & conservation, rachel carmickle, herbarium technician & conservation program assistant, robert george, independent contractor, east texas flora project manager, tiana franklin rehman, director of the herbarium.

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Scientific research is fundamental to the mission of NTBG and to all aspects of our conservation, horticulture, and education programs.

The world’s plants and their habitats are disappearing at an alarming rate, many even before they have been named or studied. Through our research efforts, NTBG is participating in the global effort to establish a scientific basis for ecological conservation and develop methods for sustainable plant utilization that benefit people while protecting the environment.

The focus of our research is identifying, documenting, understanding, and conserving the rich diversity of plants and their habitats in the tropics, with particular emphasis on the plants of Hawai’i and the greater Pacific region. The results of NTBG research in systematics (classifying and naming biological organisms and studying their relationships to each other) and floristics (the study of the plants or flora of a defined geographic or political region) contribute important knowledge of the world’s inventory of plant species. In conjunction with systematics and floristics, staff research focuses on plant propagation, economic plants and ethnobotany, paleoecology, invasive species, phytogeography, pollination ecology, seed conservation biology, and restoration ecology.

Science and Conservation in Action

NTBG’s staff of highly trained scientists, researchers, biologists, and botanists work in the field, labs and nurseries to preserve and protect plants.

Areas of Research

Systematics and taxonomy.

Plant systematics is a science that includes and encompasses traditional taxonomy (classification and naming), with the additional goal of understanding the evolutionary relationships among plants.

A main focus of systematic research at NTBG is the primarily tropical Rubiaceae, or coffee family, the world’s fourth largest flowering plant family, with 13,500 species belonging to more than 600 genera. Various species produce alkaloids responsible for their economic and medicinal utility. An important research and conservation collection of Rubiaceae has been established at the NTBG. These living collections are important resources not only for systematic studies, but also are being investigated for activity of plant extracts on biological processes that adversely impact human health in collaboration with investigators from the International Center for Tropical Botany (ICTB) and Florida International University (FIU).

Pteridophytes (Ferns and fern allies)

Pteridophytes are important components of tropical plant communities and are another focus of systematic and floristic research at NTBG. This takes place through describing new species, writing floristic treatments, and via inter-institutional collaborations by sharing herbarium specimens and DNA samples collected by NTBG during the course of field work.

Phytogeography

Phytogeography, the study of plant distributions, is built into all of the field work that NTBG conducts. Field researchers routinely map the distribution and abundance of rare Pacific island plants. Our herbarium (PTBG) houses all of this data through vouchered collections.

Pollination Ecology

Understanding plant breeding systems is a fundamental component of plant conservation, and the need for information is even more pressing for rare plants that have co-evolved with specialist pollinators that may also be rare or even extinct. For instance, if a plant species is incapable of full or partial autogamy (selfing), a total loss of reproductive output may be experienced with loss of a pollinator, so human assisted pollination may be one management practice to implement as a first step.

Our research focuses on understanding the pollination ecology of Hawaiian species to inform best management practices for the species outlined in the  Hawaiʻi Strategy for Plant Conservation .

Seed Conservation Biology

In alignment with the  Global Strategy For Plant Conservation , the  Hawaii Strategy for Plant Conservation , and the  National Seed Strategy  we are investigating methods to preserve and protect Hawaiian species of conservation importance  ex situ  in the Seed Bank and Laboratory.

Our emphasis is determining seed and pollen storage behavior, seed longevity and aging kinetics, seed borne pathogen abatement, and seed dormancy and dormancy alleviation of native Hawaiian plant species of conservation importance. Our research aims to understand how seeds respond to desiccation and subfreezing temperatures, identifying regeneration intervals, and determining optimal seed propagation techniques.

Social-Ecological System Resilience

Social-Ecological System Resilience is the study of human-in-nature systems with the particular goal of understanding how these systems recover from unexpected, catastrophic change over time.

NTBG’s  Limahuli Garden and Preserve  is located within the most biodiverse eco-region in the Hawaiian archipelago and leads the coordination of research efforts in the social-ecological system (ahupua’a) of Haena. Key social-ecological system research components include history, ethnography, archaeology, forestry, agroforestry, botany, limnology, hydrology, sea bird and fisheries biology.

The culmination of floristic and systematic research of the plants of a particular region is the publication of its Flora. A Flora, when using the term to refer to a publication, is a book, online resource, or other work that describes the plant species occurring in a given area (either geographic or political) or time period. The purpose of a published Flora is to allow identification of the plants described in it and provide an historical record of these plants.

Led by Senior Research Scientist Dr. David Lorence and collaborators, NTBG has been conducting and floristic research across the Pacific for several decades culminating in the publication of several major regional Floras. A New Flora of Fiji, a substantial work of over 3,000 pages has been published, and a Chronicle and Flora of Niihau, which combines a flora with an historical account of this small island.

In 2020 a 2 volume book Flora of the Marquesas Islands was published and NTBG published the Flora of Samoa in 2022. Continued fieldwork is conducted towards completing a Flora of Micronesia in the coming years. Several of the published and planned book Floras are preceded by online Floras. See more details about some of NTBG’s Flora projects .

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Why Gardening Is So Good for You

Digging holes can be a workout and mood booster all rolled into one.

By Dana G. Smith

Dana Smith reported this story from Plant Hardiness Zone 8a.

Last Saturday, I was covered in dirt, my back ached, the scream of a trillion cicadas rang in my ears, and, despite my best efforts, a sunburn was developing on the back of my neck.

I was in heaven.

Over the course of the day, I planted my summer haul of annuals (a riot of reds, purples and yellows), transplanted some fall-blooming mums and pulled a Montauk daisy that had grown too big for the space. A neighbor took the daisy off my hands, and in return gifted me some iris and lamb’s ear that he needed to thin out of his yard.

For me, gardening is a workout, meditation and opportunity to socialize with my neighbors all rolled into one. And while I’m admittedly biased, research backs up some of my observations that gardening can have real benefits for your mind and body .

Gardening gets you moving.

Shoveling mulch, pulling weeds and lugging around a watering can all qualify as moderate-intensity physical activities . And gardeners tend to report higher levels of physical activity overall, compared with non-gardeners.

In one recent study conducted in Colorado, for example, people who joined a community garden logged nearly six extra minutes a day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity compared with people who were on the waiting list for a plot. That may not sound like a lot, but it added up to about 42 extra minutes per week, said Jill Litt, a professor of environmental health at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who ran the trial.

“That’s almost 30 percent of the way to meeting the federal recommendations” of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week, Dr. Litt said. “People talk about it as a way to meet these goals and be more active but not having to get on a treadmill.”

There is also some evidence that gardeners, possibly because of this increased activity, have better cardio-metabolic health. One study of older adults found that, compared with those who don’t exercise, people who gardened as one of their main physical activities had lower rates of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Some of the more vigorous gardening activities, like digging, raking and hauling bags of potting soil, can also serve as a strength workout, challenging muscles in the arms, legs and core.

Not every study shows physical health benefits from gardening, though, especially when the activities are lower intensity or done for just 10 or 15 minutes at a time. It’s also possible that people who choose gardening as a hobby are healthier and more active than non-gardeners even before they dig in.

Gardening does wonders for your mental well-being.

Some studies report that working in a garden lowers people’s scores on anxiety and depression measures; other research has found increased confidence and self-esteem among gardeners. In one small study , spending 30 minutes gardening lowered levels of the stress hormone cortisol .

Experts think there are a few possible ways gardening improves mental health. First, physical activity itself is a well-established way to boost mood.

Many people also report feeling a sense of meaning and purpose when they garden, which is an important contributor to well-being .

“Working with plants, people kind of see where they fit in the world,” said Emilee Weaver, the program manager of therapeutic horticulture at the North Carolina Botanical Garden. “They see why they’re valuable because of the cause-and-effect relationship that plants so visibly articulate.”

In addition, gardening, especially in community or allotment gardens, can help people build social connections and combat loneliness . In the Colorado study, participants talked about the relationships they developed and said they felt more bonded to their community through gardening.

“They’re fostering social connection. They’re getting more involved,” Dr. Litt said. “They talk about sense of belonging. They talk about shared learning. All of these processes are really important for mental health.”

If you garden at home, putting a bed in the front yard instead of the back could similarly spur conversation and bring together neighbors, she added.

It’s possible that the act of getting your hands dirty could have a positive effect on your mood, as well. There is some research to suggest that bacteria in soil can alter the microbiome in a way that reduces stress and inflammation.

If playing in the dirt isn’t your thing, just being outdoors in a natural environment can provide stress relief and help people recover from mental fatigue, said Carly Wood, a senior lecturer in sport and exercise science at the University of Essex in England, who researches the mental health benefits of nature-based interventions, including gardening .

That may be because being in nature activates the mind and senses in a way that takes your attention off other things. “Natural environments are fascinating,” Dr. Wood said. “All their features inherently engage us and kind of distract us, in a way, from our stressors.”

And you don’t need to spend all day outdoors to reap the benefits, she said. “Five minutes is enough to improve your self-esteem and your mood.”

Dana G. Smith is a Times reporter covering personal health, particularly aging and brain health. More about Dana G. Smith

The Joys of Gardening

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Digging holes can be both a workout and mood booster. Here’s why gardening is so good for you .

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Is y our garden missing something ? An imposing work of pottery can be as important to the design of a landscape as any well-placed plant. And no, not just flower pots.

Want to create a living fence? Or maybe you’d like to produce a harvest of leaves and twigs to feed livestock, or simply enliven the landscape with color? There’s a willow for that .

Are you thinking of growing onions from seeds? Here’s what you need to know .

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To make all that hard work in the garden easier, you will need the right gear. Here are some must-have items , from a sun hat to comfortable sandals.

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