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Raising new plants
 The main aim of the propagation unit is to ensure that the diversity within the collection is maintained and expanded. Trees for propagation are prioritised into different categories according to their significance. Category 1 contains those plants with the highest priority. Most of our red data book species are listed as category one plants. Plants often change categories - for instance when a plant of genetic value is to be removed from the collection it may become a category one plant. Selection of plants and seed from the various Index Semina and surplus plant lists is directed by the Accession policy. Treatment of any accessions is recorded in great detail on a database and this is proving to be a more and more valuable tool as the years go by. The database allows our propagators to search for the best way of propagating new and unusual material, which may not be mentioned in the reference books.  Most of the propagation work with regard to maintaining the collection involves vegetative propagation, as it is the particular genotype that we are interested in. This mainly involves cuttings and grafting. With new species we are always looking for wild source material. However as visitors are important to us we are also planting and propagating many cultivars.
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