Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Annual Report 2018-19

Cranbourne Gardens
HIGH QUALITY LANDSCAPES
New special places
Due to supporter donations, the
Horticulture and Landscaping Project
teams were able to complete three new
Wellbeing Gardens in Fern Gully. The
team also commenced planning and site
preparation for the new Arid Garden
precinct, removing cacti for storage
and propagation, redeveloping the
Sensory Garden, taking climate suited
plant inventory, preparation for the
Tecoma Bed upgrade, and completion of
redevelopment of the Guilfoyle Line Bed
and rockery.
The Living Collections Strategy
The final draft of the Melbourne Gardens
Living Collections Strategy (LCS) was
completed by 30 June 2019 and will guide
development of the living collections
over the next 20 years. Key topics in
the LCS include consideration of the
future climate, its associated selection of
collections, better alignment with global
and national plant biodiversity targets, a
methodology for collection evaluation and
other tools for improved management
of the living collections. Based on
an assessment via Botanic Gardens
Conservation International’s Plant Search,
Melbourne Gardens is ranked 35 th in the
world for taxa diversity, and 50 th and 58 th
in the world for threatened and unique
taxa respectively. It is also in the top 5
per cent for all these categories across
1,150 botanic gardens worldwide.
Work continues to support plant selection
under climate change. Additional climate
risk assessments for approximately
2,000 new taxa and 12,000 rare and
threatened taxa are being incorporated
within the Living Collections Database to
support living collections and landscape
development.
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS BOARD VICTORIA — ANNUAL REPORT 2018–19 55