BGCI’s GardenSearch is the only global source of information for all botanic gardens worldwide. In addition to thousands of botanic gardens and arboreta, GardenSearch includes zoos, gene and seed banks, and tissue culture and cryopreserved collections. Whether you are looking for collaborators, botanical resources or expertise, or simply want to visit a garden, GardenSearch will connect you to the right garden.

Data contained in GardenSearch is primarily provided and managed by individual institutions. BGCI welcomes garden staff to register as an Editor to maintain and update their institution’s GardenSearch profile. Editors will be encouraged to review and update their garden’s GardenSearch profile on an annual basis.

Use GardenSearch to

• Locate gardens in your region and around the world.
• Connect to potential collaborators by identifying gardens with specific features, facilities, and programmes.
• Identify global trends in botanic garden conservation capacity.
• Get your institution on its way to achieving BGCI Accreditation.
• Help BGCI track botanic garden progress toward implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework, the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), and other relevant international policies.

GardenSearch general information (in English)

GardenSearch general information (in Spanish)

Search Tips

Search by garden name or location (including countries and continents), or use the Advanced Search to help you identify gardens with specific features, facilities, and programmes under any of the following areas:

• Garden Type: type (e.g. botanic garden, cemetery, public park, seed bank, etc.) and governance (e.g. private, academic, trust, etc.).
• Garden Details: whether gardens are open to the public, garden age, altitude, precipitation, latitude and longitude, area, number of staff, visitors and volunteers.
• Membership & Accreditation: whether gardens are BGCI members, regional or technical networks members, or BGCI or ArbNet accredited.

If you can suggest updates or additional botanical institutions to add to GardenSearch, please fill in the New Garden Request Form.

Update Your Institution’s GardenSearch Profile

GardenSearch data are provided and managed by individual institutions. Providing gardens with a visible web presence, even when they don’t have a website, any botanic garden or similar institution with a permanent plant collection is welcome to participate. More than one staff member per institution can register as an Editor and update their institution’s information. Coming soon, Editors can upload a list of plant taxa maintained in their collection to BGCI’s PlantSearch.

BGCI welcomes and encourages garden staff to register as an Editor to maintain and update their institution’s GardenSearch profile (see instructions below).

How to Access Your Garden Profile

1- Login with or create a BGCI SheepApp account via GardenSearch. To connect you to your garden efficiently please use your work email, and avoid using personal or shared email addresses.

2- Upon login, if you are affiliated with a garden, you will see your institution’s profile, and can edit it.

• If you are not yet affiliated with a garden, you will be asked to fill out the Request for Garden Affiliation form, to demonstrate your formal affiliation with (e.g., you work for) the garden in question. BGCI will contact you via email when your request has been reviewed.
• If your garden is not yet listed in GardenSearch please fill in the New Garden Request Form.
• If the name of your garden is incorrect in GardenSearch please email us at gardensearch@bgci.org

3- Once in Edit mode, add or edit data in any of the sections listed below. Your changes will be saved automatically, and you can view your garden’s current profile in Preview mode (see on the top right menu, see FAQs). 

• Garden Overview
• Leadership & Governance
• Sustainability
• Plant Conservation
• Living Collections
• Research
• Education & Outreach

Country Names in GardenSearch

BGCI uses ISO 3166 delimitation of country codes and names for the BGCI databases. “The purpose of ISO 3166 is to define internationally recognised codes of letters and/or numbers that we can use when we refer to countries and their subdivisions. However, it does not define the names of countries – this information comes from United Nations sources (Terminology Bulletin Country Names and the Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use maintained by the United Nations Statistics Divisions).

As a general rule, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency does not assign official country code elements to other geopolitical areas or countries that are not member states of the UN. However, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency may assign country codes to dependencies of countries that are member states of the UN. To be considered, some criteria, amongst others, include that the area be physically separated from its parent country and outside its territorial waters. Even if all criteria are met, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency may decide not to assign a code element, for example, due to the very limited number of official alpha-2 code elements available.”

For more information please go here.

Future Releases

BGCI will make summary data available for scholarly, educational, conservation, or research purposes, and provide download capabilities via GardenSearch. BGCI members will have further query and download capabilities, in the next GardenSearch release.

Citing GardenSearch

Please cite any use of GardenSearch data as:
BGCI. [YEAR]. GardenSearch. Botanic Gardens Conservation International. Richmond, U.K. Available at http://gardensearch.bgci.org. Accessed on DD/MM/YYYY.

And refer to the database as BGCI’s GardenSearch.

Data User And Provider Agreement

Please refer to BGCI Data User and Provider Agreements when downloading data from and when providing data to GardenSearch.

GardenSearch Data Requests

BGCI will make summary data available and provide download capabilities via GardenSearch in future releases.

Much of the data BGCI stores and curates are available through BGCI online tools, however, if you require information which is not available through the online downloads, please fill out this Data Request Form. The information required in the form enables BGCI to provide advice and determine what data will be most useful to you and your project. Once submitted a member of BGCI will review the request and follow up with you via email.

Acknowledgements

The development of this version of BGCI’s GardenSearch was made possible with the support of the following organisations:

We acknowledge support from IMLS grants: MG-60-19-0064-19 and MG-245575-OMS-20

Data in BGCI’s GardenSearch is made possible by valuable data contributions by thousands of botanic garden staff around the world.

BGCI is grateful to Keith Damiani for designing and building the GardenSearch system and web app.

GardenSearch is dedicated to the memory of Diane Wyse Jackson, a passionate visionary for botanic garden data sharing.