Digitization, integration, and optimization of collections data can pay dividends across the board from management efficiency to innovative research activity. Unfortunately, this data often remains...

Successfully engaging the adult learner requires a delicate balance of science and art. How do we as education departments continue to serve our audience by providing outstanding program offerings with every...

Do you feel a tension between your mission and the overwhelming push to incorporate technology into your visitor experience? Are you curious about how others have used technology to enhance, rather than...

To be tenable in the modern age, botanical gardens are obligated to be more than just display gardens but are called to be active parts of their community, both locally and globally. An open-propagation...

Are you interested in leveraging your collections to reach out to the public about food and agriculture? If so, come and learn from some of South Florida’s, and the whole country’s, most amazing garden...

Connect with the communities you serve to create a better future for us all. Learn how some gardens have worked collaboratively to develop programs the serve both environmental and social goals. Then use the...

Heirloom vegetables, heirloom roses… how about heirloom viburnums? What’s happening to older cultivars of genera that don’t have a special interest group championing their cause? This session will explore the...

As a leader or emerging leader, does your staff feel trust, admiration, loyalty, and respect for you? Does your staff work harder than expected to accomplish your institution’s goals? Hear and engage panelists...

In 1995, Smithsonian Gardens opened the Butterfly Habitat Garden at the National Museum of Natural History. After twenty years, this popular landscape is being reinterpreted to become the Pollinator Garden....

Native cultivars (“nativars”) are being developed at a rapid pace by the nursery trade. Despite marketing efforts to convince the gardening public of their value in wildlife landscaping, little is known about...

The Museum Assessment Program (MAP) is a confidential process meant to encourage strategic planning toward the goal of institutional excellence. It has been specifically designed to address the strengths,...

Public gardens have a unique set of resources that can be used to make a difference in our national responses to climate change. Learn how some gardens have negotiated this tricky subject and embraced the role...

How can we help identify and train the public garden and environmental leaders of tomorrow? By starting early! Find out how four institutions are infusing authentic leadership experiences into their...

Public gardens seek to inspire the appreciation of nature. Many gardens also seek to conserve nature. But often these two key motivations, inspiration and conservation, live in separate domains. Visitors,...

Climate change is affecting public landscapes now. Research into managing existing landscapes and designing new ones is critical if our parks and gardens are to adapt. After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, a...

Gardens at night offer a sense of mystery, heightening other senses as vision slips away. Evening visitors experience gardens at a special time of day, encountering scents of night-blooming flowers, the magic...

Your gift shop has the potential to be more than a retail space that sells magnets, pens, and hats with your institution’s logo. Private label products in your gift shop can be a fiscally beneficial extension...

As climate change places continued pressure upon wild-plant populations, botanical gardens and arboreta become increasingly indispensable conservation agents. Not only are collection managers faced with harder...

As public gardens continue to place increased emphasis on sustainable landscape and operational strategies, learning to look to the sciences of ecology and natural areas management becomes of greater practical...

The Public Garden Sustainability Index is an industry-specific tool to help gardens, large and small, meaningfully act upon this opportunity and fulfill the evolving stewardship responsibility that lies at the...