Omaha's Lauritzen Gardens Recognized As 'worldclass' Botanical Garden

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Omaha's Lauritzen Gardens Recognized As 'worldclass' Botanical Garden

With this new title, the Lauritzengarten joins the list of the most important botanical gardens in the world.

Jim Locklear, director of conservation at Lauritzen Gardens, inspects brown oak seedlings in the greenhouse.

The 100-acre property at 10th and Bancroft Streets in Omaha is accredited as a conservation specialist by Conservancy Botanic Gardens International. This is an award that only 30 other botanical gardens have received.

Not bad, the conservation director said of a part of Omaha that was once used as a landfill.

"We started as a landfill. Today it is a world-class botanical garden,” said Jim Locklear. "We can be proud of that."

BGCI Conservation Practitioner accreditation recognizes botanic gardens with a conservation approach that aims to support local, national or global conservation goals.

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As part of the application process, Lauritzen Gardens staff worked for more than a year to document the community garden's efforts in endangered plant protection, research, collection care, community engagement, horticultural conservation and sustainable practices. .

The staff had to carry out 20 tasks set by BGCI, an organization that brings together 800 botanic gardens in 118 countries. This arduous process helped Lauritzen refocus his efforts on his conservation program, launched in 2011, dedicated to conserving plants, promoting conservation principles and managing the region's biodiversity.

In March 2012, the garden was named the 38th institutional conservation partner of the Center for Plant Conservation and has been a member of the International Organization for Conservation of Botanic Gardens since 2012.

"We see ourselves as both a conservation company and a garden," Locklear said.

Oak saplings in the Lauritzengarten greenhouse. More than 300 plants have been planted on 100 hectares.

As part of this process, staff work to better understand how creatures other than plants use the property. A total of 161 species of birds, 63 species of butterflies and more than 100 species of bees have been identified in the gardens.

This information allows them to better manage the garden to preserve and increase opportunities for wildlife.

Some projects in this work may not be visible to visitors.

"A good example is our rose garden, which is a very traditional garden," Locklear said. “We pulled out some grass and planted some native plants. It's subtle, but they're there. Roses do not attract butterflies or bees, but by adding native plants we have increased diversity.

Laurtizen is also expanding its 10-hectare oak forest, which is critical to the region's wildlife ecology.

The seeds were collected and over 300 seedlings were planted in the gardens, including 100 on a bare slope in the conservation park's open garden at the far end of the park from the visitor centre.

This is part of the ecological restoration efforts of the garden.

Lauritzen Gardens. In this area, the bare slope is planted with oak plants.

"One of the most interesting things is covering a lot of the behind-the-scenes action at the Garden," Locklear said.

Staff also work outside the garden on other research projects documenting biodiversity elsewhere in the state.

One is a joint effort with Nebraska Game and Parks and the Nature Conservancy to collect seeds of the endangered penstemon that grows in Nebraska.

Some seeds are stored for a long time, while others are used to restore the plant in the wild. One such restoration project is underway in the Sandhills.

Locklear said the work Lauritzen does and its new accreditation set it apart from other kindergartens.

"It made us realize we were doing really cool stuff," he said. "The things that distinguish us as a garden."

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