25 staff from 18 botanical gardens of China gathered together in Kunming and Xishuangbanna during November 21 and December 3 to attend a horticulture training course at Kunming Botanical Garden, as well as at Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG). The course had been arranged by the Chinese Union of Botanical Gardens (CUBG), with the aim of raising horticulture capacity throughout botanical gardens nationwide.

   The course was comprised of 7 subjects, commonly theory course in the morning, practice in the afternoon, and discussion in the evening.

   Mr. Duncan Coombs from and Adrian Holmes Nigel from University of Worcester travelled from UK to Kunming to teach some subjects of the CUBG course. Other teachers included Prof. Chen Xiu Hong from Southwest University of Forestry, Prof. SUN Weibang from Kunming Botanical Garden, Prof. Chen Jin, Ms. Hu Jianxiang and Mr. Li Youyun of XTBG.

The training course was composed of seven parts: propagation technology – seed propagation and cutting propagation of plants; common diseases and pest insects in plants in botanical gardens and biological controls; brush cutting and care of woody plants; technique of plant transplantation; effective ex situ conservation of important plant groups (mainly wild plant species with extremely small populations or extremely endangered); ornamental plant configuration and display aimed at knowledge dissemination; use, maintenance and management of gardening machines.

 Prof. Chen Jin, chairman of CUBG and director of XTBG, spoke at the opening and closing ceremonies. He expressed his gratitude to Kunming Botanical Garden and XTBG for organizing the training. He also encouraged the participants to change vocational interests into personal interests, to extend communication and share information and experience. Horticulture capacity of participants was expected to be better and better. The gap in garden construction and management between advanced nations and China is expected to be reduced.

   Like the training course in 2013, the 2014 CUBG horticulture training course will choose three excellent participants to study in Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh or some other famous botanical gardens.

Opening Ceremony

A teacher is lecturing

Prof. Chen Jin speaking at the opening ceremony

(Images from KIB)