Establishing a Cacti and Succulents Collection at Juiz de Fora Botanical Garden, Brazil

  • Status of project

    Completed

  • Region

    Latin America and the Caribbean

  • Country

    Brasil

  • Programme

    BGCI

  • Workstream

    Saving Plants

  • Topic

    Services for Botanic Gardens
Funded by the Global Botanic Garden Fund
Project Completed: 2023
Institution: Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro

Cacti and succulents collection creation and team training at the Juiz de Fora Botanic Garden

This was a collaborative project between the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden (RJBG) and the Juiz de Fora Botanical Garden (JFBG), which aimed to establish a Cacti and Succulents Collection at JFBG.

Built upon the principle of supporting another Brazilian botanical garden – in line with one of the missions of the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden (RJBG) – this project had two distinct objectives:

1) to establish a cacti and succulent collection at the JFBG;
2) to train the JFBG team in the maintenance of this collection.

RJBG had excessively duplicated plant specimens in its own collection, so 246 plants from 45 taxa, spanning 7 botanical families, were donated from RJBG to the JFBG. Funds from BGCI paid for planting and education materials, to enable the display to be created.

The plants donated by RJBG were from the historical collection, lacking provenance data and unsuitable for conservation. However, they serve well for public display and environmental education. JFBG had no collection of cacti and succulent plants, so these are a great asset to the garden. The project made a significant impact by providing a taxonomically identified collection as a starting point to work with.

Training at Juiz de Fora Botanic Garden. Photo Credit: Thais Almeida

 

The JFBG team received training on cultivating this plant group from the curator of the RJBG Cacti and Succulent Collection, a specialist in Cactaceae. This training had a significant impact, since the gardeners who participated in the course had no prior experience with this plant group and it was possible to raise awareness about the importance of these plants and their cultivation.

 

Training materials. Photo Credit: Thais Almeida

 

Over two days, the teams from both gardens worked together to set up the Cacti and Succulent Collection, ensuring proper drainage, substrate nutrient availability and species identification. The training involved 25 participants, including gardening staff, employees and garden monitors, who collaborated in planting the collection.

Final project outcome. Photo Credit: Thais Almeida

 

The project was a great success as a succulent plant collection was assembled for public display and it was well-received on both botanical gardens’ social media, showing strong engagement – and the outlook for the collection’s continuation is promising. 

watch garden bed creation video