We are excited and delighted to welcome two student interns from the A2I (Access to Internships) scheme run by the University, who will be joining the Grounds team in June to support us in our databasing work of the trees, plants and shrubs throughout the University grounds.
Last year we invested in a new IrisBG database system to allow us to survey, categorise and record the plants, trees and shrubs we care for in the grounds at the University.
The priority is to record the trees and conservation collections, followed by notable shrubs and then other plants and we have already started to input the results of the tree surveys carried out by an independent tree specialist last year.
This database system is used internationally by many botanic gardens and other gardens with important plant collections. We plan, at some point, to make it visible to users of the grounds so people can find out more about the plant collections we have.
The students are studying Biological Sciences and Natural Sciences; they will be focusing on areas of the central campus and the work will involve surveying the plants and shrubs in these areas and recording the information which will be uploaded to the database.
This support will be vital to us in helping us to get more of the collection surveyed.