NGBH Joins the American Public Gardens Association

Native Gardens of Blue Hill is excited to share that we have recently joined the American Public Gardens Association (APGA), a leading professional organization dedicated to advancing the field of public horticulture. APGA supports gardens across the country and around the world by promoting best practices, offering educational and networking opportunities, and advocating for the role of public gardens in conservation, education, and community engagement.

As part of this new membership, NGBH’s Garden Manager, Rachel Emus, recently attended the APGA Small Public Gardens Symposium. The event brought together staff from gardens of similar scale to share practical strategies for strengthening programs, improving visitor experiences, and expanding conservation efforts.

One area of focus was cost-effective digital mapping for small public gardens. Interactive maps can help visitors explore plant collections while also serving as valuable record-keeping tools. Rachel learned that free tools such as Google My Maps and Google Sites can be used to build engaging digital maps that highlight plant collections, historical information, and self-guided tours. Collaborations with universities, municipalities, archives, and volunteers can also help enrich these projects.

Sample plant map shared by a symposium presenter

Another session explored digital plant interpretation as a way to deepen visitor engagement. A platform called Plantsoon allows gardens to create simple online pages for individual plants or garden features—including descriptions, images, and location data—accessible through QR codes on plant labels. Inspired by this approach, Rachel hopes to experiment with a similar system by creating QR codes that link to plant profiles already housed in NGBH’s existing online plant database.

Interactive sign with QR code from Plantsoon; Interpretive sign from Lark Signs

The symposium also highlighted the importance of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA) in public gardens. Using Ithaca Children’s Garden as a case study, presenters demonstrated how IDEA principles can be woven into everyday organizational practices rather than treated as a separate initiative.

In addition to the formal sessions, the symposium provided valuable opportunities to connect with staff from other public gardens. These conversations sparked new ideas for NGBH, including experimenting with volunteer-led data collection and expanding interpretive signage to help visitors better understand the plants and stories within the garden.

If you are interested in helping NGBH explore and implement some of these ideas—whether through volunteering, research, or collaboration—we would love to hear from you. Please reach out to Rachel at gardens@ngbh.org to learn how you can be part of this exciting work.