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| The Field PC I used to record plants now blooming in our gardens |
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| The renovated Front Entrance, with modified road and new moss planting |
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Our beautiful Clematis ‘General Sikorski’ with our beautiful gardener, Meagan Deveau, in the background |
Last week I was able to work with our Plant Records Coordinator and Plant Propagator, Sharmon Provan, who has been educating me on Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens’ plant collection management methods. A large part of her job involves working with BG-Base and BG-Mapping software, a system that allows us to control our inventory and accurately document, label, and curate our plant collections. I have been keeping track of which plants are blooming on a hand0held device called a Field PC- a digital personal assistant that is invaluable for collecting field data- and then uploading my results into BG-Base, then to a searchable public plant database called FloraFind. This program allows users to locate a specific plant at the Gardens, find out what’s blooming, find a garden feature, or even to build a personalized tour through our gardens.
In addition to managing our living collections, Sharmon is responsible for ensuring the efficacy of our propagation program, managing our greenhouses, and maintaining our front entrance garden. I didn’t know one person could be capable of running so much! Currently one of her more problematic tasks is managing the erosion problem of our front entrance; all the rain we’ve been receiving lately keeps washing out the soil along the front entrance stone walls.
To fix this recurring issue, we spent a day laying and compacting stone dust, hoping to redirect rainwater to our drain holes and away from the entrance plantings. After we modified the road, we collected moss from around the grounds and transplanted it along the stone walls. Luckily the weather has been incredibly accommodating for transplanting and many of the plants have established successfully.
– Montana Williams, Pearson Horticulture Intern
