Norfolk Plant Heritage Plant Fair 2021
Since the beginning of Covid, many people have found solace and a joy in gardening.
Small back yards and larger gardens have found themselves being tended, with all sorts of seeds sewn and plants grown. According to reports, Gardening was the second most popular activity after Television to keep people occupied during lockdown.
As plants fall out of fashion or are superseded, vital genetic traits could simply vanish, unless they are taken into care and shared with others. If the expertise to grow and propagate them is also lost, our ability to properly conserve our unique garden flora is placed under significant threat.
The Norfolk Plant Heritage Group (www.norfolkplantheritage.org.uk) is committed to encouraging its members to grow historic, unusual and threatened plants, to share plants with other members, to help preserve genetic material and biodiversity and to ensure a rich horticultural environment for future generations: conservation through cultivation. This is carried out in various ways.
Plant Heritage is lucky to have holders of more than 600 National Plant Collections around the UK amongst its members. This means that they search out and grow the widest range of their special interest plant groups.
The Threatened Plants Project is working to identify garden-worthy plants with the highest risk of extinction, with the ambition that these can be conserved in National Plant Collections and the Plant Guardian Scheme.
By becoming part of The Plant Guardian Scheme, members can nurture rare plants in their own gardens.
