Moving to Hortis: Cairns Botanic Garden shares their experience

Dr Waheed Arshad, Botanical Scientist and Havard Ostgaard, CEO, Botanical Software

Last year, BGANZ selected Hortis as the records management system of choice for the region’s botanic gardens. The aim was to provide members with a robust, reliable, secure and accessible solution that is optimised to meet the current and future needs of regional botanic gardens.

Since then, Hortis has onboarded several gardens from Victoria and is now open to members across the rest of Australia and New Zealand, including Cairns Botanic Garden. From the Gondwanan Evolutionary Garden to boardwalks through palms, this Queensland oasis is renowned as one of the best collections of tropical plants in Australia.

As the Hortis team continues to work with more BGANZ members, Waheed caught up with Dr Charles Clarke, Curator at Cairns Botanic Garden, to learn about his experience since adopting Hortis in April 2022.

Waheed Arshad

Could you tell us about the plant records at Cairns Botanic Garden?

‘The collection here is quite outstanding, but it was never a very carefully catalogued collection. We’ve recently had the first accessions book of the gardens from the 1800s professionally restored, which has some amazing old records in it. However, it wasn’t until about the 1960s that Cairns formalised accession numbers – our first documented accession is actually 1960‑0002!’

What type of plant records system were you looking for?

‘For some time, we’ve been looking for a system that is more modern, more intuitive, more interactive, that takes away our reliance on hand‑written documents – something also that is cloud‑based and that any of our staff can use. This was where Hortis came into the equation.

We were really looking for something that is flexible, something that we can easily interrogate and get information out of whenever we need it – and without having to be software engineers in order to do it.’

Cairns Botanic Garden houses one of the best collections of tropical plants in Australia. Charles using Hortis at his desktop computer.

How have you found using Hortis so far?

‘I’ve only been using Hortis for a couple of weeks, but it has been exceptionally easy using to use. In terms of entering accessions, the format of the entry system is extremely simple, very intuitive, very easy. I learned how to do it within probably about 20 minutes!’

Are there any features you’re looking forward to?

‘There’ll be many things in Hortis which we look forward to, for instance, mapping our plant locations and managing our garden beds – I really look forward to that. I think it’s such a useful thing for us. We have brush turkeys at our garden, so it’s very rare for us to be able to put a small name tag next to a plant for longer than a week, because they’re always moving them around and a lot of our staff don’t know where to put the name tag back.’

There’ll be many things in Hortis which we look forward to, for instance, mapping our plant locations and managing our garden beds.

How will Hortis impact the way you manage your collection?

‘It’s going to be a great tool for our staff to use in the field. That’s going to be a big, big step forward for us as we enter the 21st century… finally! In terms of our plant records, we’ve been stuck in the 19th century for a while, so we’re really looking forward to working with Hortis.

Accurate record‑keeping is something that all botanic gardens are supposed to do, but recently we haven’t been doing it effectively because of this lack of a suitable package – so it’s a big step forward for us.’

Mapping in Hortis has arrived

Mid‑April, Hortis launched an early version of mapping. You can now map your existing plant materials and explore your plant collection in a more interactive way. As with all Hortis capabilities, this works across mobiles, tablets, and desktop computers, all without the need for a complex installation process.

If you want to learn more about Hortis, visit www.hortis.com or get in touch with waheed@botanicalsoftware.com to arrange a meeting for a demonstration and discuss onboarding options.

Managing your plant collection via the map view of your garden.

BGANZ member discount

When signing up to Hortis, you decide on the data recording capacity you will need for your subscription. BGANZ members are offered double capacity for their first year at no additional cost. For more information about this offer, contact Tex Moon, terence.moon@parks.vic.gov.au.