Environment
in the first place!” The garden’s intrepid field team
Growing this collection is the responsibility of
have been doing just this for the past few years.
the horticultural team, say horticultural special-
Laila continues, “Field work is a core activity at
ists Ismail al Rashdi and Khalid al Farsi; “When
the garden; we have teams out almost each
plants are brought to the garden by the field
week, exploring every corner of Oman, searching
team they usually arrive as seeds or cuttings.
for particular plants that we are trying to grow
All seeds need to be painstakingly cleaned of
for the garden. The field team collects seeds, cut-
any excess plant material and insects by hand,
tings and sometimes whole plants, to bring back
counted and weighed, so we know how many
to the nursery for our horticulturalists to grow.”
we need to plant to reach our targets. They are stored in a cool, dry room, our temporary seed
The botanic garden is a scientific institution
bank, until they are collected to be sown by the
and the field work constitutes a major part of
propagation team. We use different mixes of
research at the moment. Data is collected along
soil, compost and sand to try and mimic the best
with the seeds; everything is carefully noted
conditions for each species and encourage them
down into databases held on rugged field com-
to germinate. As many of these plants have never
puters, from the date, species, name of collector
been cultivated before it is very experimental.
and GPS location coordinates to their ecology
We learn as we go and use our experiences to
and local stories about their uses. “Every seed
help decide what will work best.”
collected is allocated a unique number, which will stay with it as it grows into a plant in the
As the young plants grow they are moved
nursery and is then planted out into the garden
through the garden’s impressive 25,000m2 nurs-
habitats. This number acts as a ‘passport’, linking
ery facility, from the propagation house, to one
the individual plant back to all the data we have
of two glasshouses, then into polytunnels, where
stored about it – where it came from, when it
the temperature and humidity is computer-
was collected, what conditions it needs to grow,
controlled. Once the plants are large enough and
what pests it suffers from and whether it is rare
tough enough they are transferred to an outdoor
or common,” explains Ghudaina al Issai, database
shade house, to acclimatise to the heat, before
specialist for Oman Botanic Garden. “It is this
moving to the unprotected hardening-off area.
data and understanding of our plant collection
“It is important we grow plants strong enough to
that makes us different from a regular park or
cope with the conditions once they are planted
garden; our data is extremely valuable to us and
into the garden’s ‘habitats’. At the same time,
to plant scientists all over the world.” With 320
we need to nurture them so the collection can
species and 86,000 plants in propagation, Oman
expand,” Khalid clarifies.
Botanic Garden already holds the largest documented collection of Arabian plants in the world.
The importance of this becomes clear upon
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