Plant Information…it’s all on the Internet…right?

It’s scary how many people rely on the Internet for all their plant knowledge. Sure, you can find some helpful information on-line, but so much of what is there is simply repeated from one writer to the next, without anyone who has actually grown the plants, checking it for accuracy.

More and more important books and journals are gradually getting scanned and will one day be available on-line, but there remains no substitute for a good library. Here at JLBG, we have just completed a construction project, which doubled the size of our reference library. Although, we have nothing compared with the country’s large, well-funded horticultural/botanical libraries, we feel that we have assembled an important reference collection for a botanical garden our size. We have been very fortunate over the last year to inherit two nice reference books collections, one with a focus on plant introductions and exploration, which now can be shelved.

Our library focus is on reference books like Floras, as well as books that go in depth on particular plant groups and genera. General landscape design books with no significant historical value are not within our focus.

The file cabinets in the photos include 40 years of plant articles, pulled from various journals and important plant magazines from around the world. We think most people today would be shocked at the extraordinarily high level of horticulture practiced and written about during the last few hundred years.

Additionally, email discussions by the worlds top plant experts from the early days of on-line communications are also preserved. Many of these experts are now deceased, but their plant knowledge and voices have been saved. All this information is filed by subject.

Also in our files are important plant catalogs, which are such an important historical record of what was being grown and sold in the past. I remember having lunch with the late English plantsman, Graham Stuart Thomas at his home, and the thing that he was most proud of was his extensive collection of significant plant catalogs.

So, if you run up on stacks of old catalogs, historical plant magazines, or plant reference books, don’t hesitate to check with us before sending them to the recycle bin.

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