The Plant Conservation Centre (PCC) is one of the few National Trust properties not open to the public. In fact, its location is a closely guarded secret – and with good reason. The PCC is both repository and production site for many of our most valuable plants, the horticultural crown jewels that are as much a part of the history of a place as its wallpaper and furniture.
Unlike the collections in our houses, plants don’t live for ever and require ongoing propagation and replanting to conserve their unique qualities. Many of these special plants are irreplaceable by the usual nursery sources due to their distinctive unique genetic make-up or unique horticultural heritage.
Protecting the irreplaceable
In order to protect these plants the PCC follows rigorous biosecurity procedures. Any incoming plants are held and carefully monitored in a separate quarantine facility, and even staff members have to pass through a foot-scrubbing and disinfection point before entering the plant areas.
With just three members of staff, the centre provides a service to Trust gardens and parks all over England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Wherever a special plant is identified as being under threat, the centre’s expert propagators are called upon to help, using a range of techniques both traditional and state of the art. In most cases the aim is to produce offspring identical to the parent plants. Simply collecting and growing from seed can introduce uncertainty and variety, and a loss of the original appearance or genetic inheritance. Other ‘asexual’ methods are therefore needed to produce cloned copies of the parent.
Cultivating the next generation