A Director's Perspective: Plant Records Professionals Add Institutional Value | October Coffee Chat 2024

"A botanical garden: a permanent institution for the purpose of acquiring, preserving, researching, and interpreting to the public for its instruction and enjoyment plants of cultural, scientific, historical, technological, and natural history value." - Timothy Hohn 

Thanks to all of you who joined us! The Coffee Chat attendees were a mix of users experience levels with 25% of the users identifying as novice, 50% intermediate users, and 25% advanced users.
All of our attendees had dedicated staff for plant records.
Our attendees were split in even thirds for how log a full time plant records position had been filled for less than a year, 1-4 years, and more than 10 years.

The map below shows the gardens and arboreta represented by those who registered for the Coffee Chat - home offices not taken into consideration.

Our October Coffee Chat was given by Chad Franer, the Tom and Nora Hiatt Director of Horticulture and Jaime Fry, Associate Curator of Living Collections, at Newfields in Indianapolis, Indiana. Newfields is a 152 acre cultural campus. One hundred of the acres are nature campus with large modern art and 52 of the acres are a garden and encyclopedic art museum.  Newfields is built on an agricultural estate from 1913 that the Eli Lily Family donated in 1972; to become a public garden. 

Chad Franer has been at Newfields for 26 years and hired Jaime in 2014, who had been volunteering as a plant recorder. Jaime had trained at South Carolina Botanical Garden, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Polly Hill Arboretum and the New York Botanical Garden and was able to share her knowledge with Newfields for what is possible. 

In the 1980's they used Mircosoft Access Database for plant orders but records were not revisited. Since 2014 they have gone from from plant records being what was being purchased each year to accurate accession records. Each horticulturists design, plant, maintain the gardens and Jaimie helps to order the plants and tell the stories about the collection. 

Aerial of Newfields

Q & A

Q for Chad: What changes seemed scary when Jaime came on staff?

A: I didn't see it as scary but as a new workflow that would document institutional knowledge into a database that is accessible to more people. 

Q for Chad: What made you decide to hire Jaime as a plant recorder?

A: The professionalism in horticulture that Jaime brings for interpretation is on par with the curation of the art museum at Newfields, that is 600,000 sq ft and was established in 1883.

We are able to take care of our historic trees in ways that we couldn't before. The historical records for tree preservation have been a big help.

The GIS work that she is willing to do can tie into the rest of the buildings, utilities, art, dedicated features, and labels. She makes certain that the spelling is correct on plant names and coordinate all of the departments.

She adds resiliency to the overall institution and grounds us with all of her work.

Q for Chad: How do you convey the value of a plant recorder to the decision makers?

A: It comes down to: do you want your garden to be at the highest level it can be, like how you would as for a registrar in the art world. It was easy for us to compare those positions with what we have in the museum. We can then tell the stories about the living collection or a memorial tree or garden for donor development.  It is a budgetary need. 

Our garden is documented as a living collection, we are able to tell what we have and what we are doing with it. It needs to have consistency and protocols to have a updated working records. The last thing you want is to have a board member or donor ask where something is and the answer isn't solid or consistent.

Q for Chad: Does having a plant recorder reduce work loads from the other horticulturists and staff?

A. Yes. For ordering the staff turn in the orders but Jaime handles this and we know that it will be done right. We all call her with questions through out the day.

Q for Jaime: Could you give some advice for starting a plant records database?

A. Find something that is flexible to help you wrangle the many aspects that you are working with, has depth for performing more complex tasks when needed, and usable for the horticulture staff. 

Q for Jaime: Your title is the Associate Curator, who is the Curator and what do they do?

A. Irvin Etienne, is our Curator of Herbaceous Plants and Seasonal Garden Design. He looks at the garden designs and plant selection and helps to consult with the horticulture staff on what will work or adding knowledge.