Promoting garden plant diversity

We lead the way in providing a single, authoritative, global knowledge bank for gardening and garden plants. This is a crucial step towards protecting the diversity of garden plants and optimising their genetic potential.

How we make a difference

Optimising and realising the genetic potential of ornamental horticultural crops to benefit the environment and human health
Understanding and promoting the benefits, use and conservation of plant genetic resources in UK gardens
Providing a single, authoritative source for the naming and classification of UK cultivated plants
Improving identification and description of garden plants for RHS members, RHS Gardens, RHS Flower Shows and RHS Plant Trials

Research and record cultivated plants

Britain’s gardens are unique and distinctive thanks to a remarkable, rich array of cultivated ornamental plants. However, their diversity is poorly documented and their contributions to the envionment, society and the economy are not well understood.

We are changing this by documenting the diversity, through accurate naming and gathering of information about garden plants. The information will be used in key RHS outputs such as the horticultural database, the project to produce an online resource about the UK’s garden plants and the work of our herbarium.

The RHS herbarium

We hold the largest collection of dried plants (herbarium) dedicated to cultivated plants in the UK and are planning new, state-of-the-art facilities to house and safeguard our internationally important collections, as well as creating a comprehensive record of the UK’s garden flora.

Work to enhance our collection involves exploring new ways of preserving cultivated plant material, increasing our coverage of plants in cultivation, encouraging breeders and raisers of new plants to provide reference specimens, and digitising our specimens to make them available online.

Our herbarium

How plants help us

Each of the 400,000 different kinds of garden plants in the UK, provide cultural, environmental and socio-economic benefits such as, localised cooling, mitigating flooding and wellbeing benefits.

We are carrying out in-depth studies of garden plants so we can maximise their benefits and improve the environment, human health and wellbeing.

Greening Great Britain

Complete record of garden plants

Our most important horticultural data and information are brought together in the RHS Horticultural Database which holds everything you could ever wish to know about flowers, fruits, vegetables and ornamental plants.

It is crucial to our vision that the information we hold is safeguarded, consolidated, developed and shared. To enable our vision we are developing an inventory of cultivated plants in the UK linked to our digitised herbarium specimens we're also recording all ecosystem services provided by different cultivated plants.

Registering new cultivars

As an International Cultivar Registration Authority (ICRA) for nine plant groups, we work to promote stability in plant naming that ensures gardeners can be confident the plants they buy are the plants they want.

We register new cultivars for some of the UK’s most popular garden and house plants, including daffodils and orchids.

Our cultivar registration groups

Tackling invasive species

Most gardeners have heard of Japanese knotweed, the problems it causes and how difficult it is to get rid of. Unfortunately, it isn't the only plant to have escaped and caused a problem in the British countryside.

Our Botanists are working to get a better understanding of invasive plant species and provide advice to gardeners and the Government.

Invasive garden plants

Our other research themes

Plant health in gardens»

Gardening in a changing world»

Plant science for all»

Get involved

The Royal Horticultural Society is the UK’s leading gardening charity. We aim to enrich everyone’s life through plants, and make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.