Conserve: Research & Conservation

Every day, the State Botanical Garden of Georgia continues safeguarding imperiled populations, restoring natural habitats and training conservation professionals. You can help us too!

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Geogia Plant Conservation Alliance

In 1995, the major Botanical gar­dens of Georgia ini­ti­ated a net­work of organi­za­tions actively involved in conser­va­tion edu­ca­tion and research. The head­quar­ters of this group, called the Georgia Plant Conser­va­tion Alliance (GPCA), is right here at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. In situ and ex situ efforts in hor­ti­cul­tu­ral safe­guard­ing are com­bined with habi­tat res­to­ra­tion, inva­sive spe­cies man­age­ment and applied pop­u­la­tion genet­ics in order to pro­tect Georgia’s most imper­iled plant pop­u­la­tions. The com­bined resources of GPCA mem­bers and the Botanical Guar­dian vol­un­teers pro­vide pow­er­ful tools to effect plant conser­va­tion in Georgia. More help is always needed, and public sup­port of plant conser­va­tion is crit­i­cal for long-term suc­cess.

Mimsie Lanier Center for Native Plant Studies

Named for Mim­sie Lanier, long­time advo­cate of the Garden's Conser­va­tion pro­grams, the Mim­sie Lanier Cen­ter is a research, edu­ca­tion and plant pro­duc­tion cen­ter nes­tled between the prairie, flood­plain and for­est nat­u­ral areas of the Garden. With 2.5 acres of fenced space, we pro­p­a­gate native Georgia plants for habi­tat res­to­ra­tion, endan­gered spe­cies recov­ery and intro­duc­tion to the gar­den­ing com­mu­nity. We pro­mote the incor­po­ra­tion of Georgia natives into Garden dis­plays and right-of-way res­to­ra­tion pro­jects in order to bet­ter reset the land for diver­sity, help sup­port eco­log­i­cal func­tions in urban areas and share really great plants.

Georgia Native Plant Initiative

The Georgia Native Plant Ini­tia­tive is a net­work the State Botanical Garden began coor­d­i­nat­ing in 2010. Its intent is to pro­mote eth­i­cal and sus­tain­able use of native plants in Georgia land­s­capes. The Ini­tia­tive con­sists of part­n­er­ships between com­mer­cial grow­ers, hor­ti­cul­tu­ral sci­en­tists, land man­agers, land­s­cape archi­tects and res­to­ra­tion ecol­o­gists. By iden­ti­fy­ing exist­ing sources of locally-pro­p­a­gated native spe­cies and pro­vid­ing new research, this ini­tia­tive will cre­ate a roadmap link­ing grow­ers and con­sumers. This net­work will make native plants more diverse and read­ily avai­l­able in the trade. The pro­gram tar­gets both orna­men­tal spe­cies to be used in land­s­cap­ing and genet­i­cally diverse native spe­cies needed for habi­tat res­to­ra­tion and reha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­jects.

Conservation Education

All of our research and conser­va­tion activ­i­ties have an edu­ca­tio­nal com­po­nent, whether it is hands-on train­ing for under­gra­d­u­ate stu­dents, conser­va­tion hor­ti­cul­ture activ­i­ties for adult vol­un­teers or staff pre­sen­ta­tions on cam­pus and at pro­fes­sio­nal meet­ings. Our exten­sive col­lec­tions of endan­gered spe­cies and research plots in the Mim­sie Lanier Cen­ter for Native Plant Studies are excep­tio­nal resources for for­mal and infor­mal instruc­tion. Under­gra­d­u­ate stu­dents at the Uni­ver­sity of Georgia have the oppor­tu­nity to par­ti­ci­pate in habi­tat res­to­ra­tion pro­jects at the Garden by enrolling in the ser­vice-learn­ing course “Conserv­ing Native Plants” (Hor­ti­cul­ture 3333S) offered every spring semester. Our pro­grams depend on vol­un­teer and stu­dent par­ti­ci­pa­tion for suc­cess, and we would love to have your help.