Green cultural heritage
The Formal Garden houses a local clonal archive contracted to preserve so called mandate cultivars of perennials and bulbs from the Västra Götaland region. All the cultivars have a documented history before 1940. As a local clonal archive Botaniska is integral to the Swedish National Gene Bank and the preservation of cultivated biodiversity in Sweden.
The Swedish National Gene Bank was established in 2016 as a result of the work within the Programme for Diversity of Cultivated Plants (Pom). Its primary aim is to preserve heirloom cultivars of fruit, berry, vegetables and ornamentals. All preserved cultivars have traditionally been grown in Sweden.
Today there are approximately 30 local clonal archives distributed across Sweden preserving selected local heirloom cultivars. To ensure their survival each mandate cultivar is preserved at two different locations – at one of the local clonal archives and in a central collection at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Alnarp.
The more people who grow an heirloom cultivar, the more likely it is to survive. Therefore, your cultivation deeds count! A lost cultivar can never be recreated.
