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Throughout its history, Ness Botanic Gardens has received many kind gifts and extraordinary legacies. Thanks to loyal champions, Hugh McAllister and legacy supporter Margaret Christine Morley, the Gardens were able to purchase a full pallet of botanic garden plant labels, an essential tool for curating and maintaining the garden’s collections. These labels will provide information of plant name, common name, distribution, and provenance and will also link to a plant’s individual record stored on the plant database (Iris). These labels play a key role in educating visitors, helping them learn more about the plants and the stories behind them.
Mike Roberts Plant Records Officer explains why these labels made a massive difference to his work at Ness.
“Most botanic gardens label their plants, and Ness is no different, labels not only act as an educational tool for visitors but are essential for the curation of the garden. This type of label is considered the industry standard. Previously Ness used label formats which could be confusing for both visitors and staff. However, the new labels are helping us standardise and improve the garden’s signage.
For instance, we have introduced red and blue labels for specific plants in our collection. If you see a red label this indicates a plant is endangered in its natural habitat. Conservation is key to our work and the team at Ness is dedicated to cultivating many threatened species in our living collection. Blue labels denote ‘Champion Trees’, which are individual trees noted for their exceptional height, size, or historical significance. Ness has several important specimens that now feature these distinctive blue labels. Look out for them during your next visit!
Sometimes, attaching a label to a plant can be challenging due to the plant's natural structure. For trees, we now have a safe screw mechanism for fixing labels to trunks - this is less harmful and more permanent compared to older methods used. For plants like bulbs or seasonal perennials that disappear after flowering, the donation funded the purchase of various stands to place labels nearby, ensuring these plants can still be identified year-round.
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Many plants cannot have labels physically attached to them for other reasons. They may die back after flowering or be bulbs which completely disappear after their season has finished. The gift allowed us to purchase stands of different heights so that labels could still be placed next to these plants, and allow the public, staff and researchers to identify what they are looking at”.
Each wonderful gift received by Ness, regardless of size, will play a vital role in protecting and maintaining our beautiful gardens which have been treasured for over 100 years by its staff, volunteers, members and visitors.
If you’ve been inspired to become part of our story by making a gift in memory or by including Ness Botanic Gardens in your Will get in touch with Carolyn Jones, Legacy Officer, at: carolyn.jones@liverpool.ac.uk .