News published: 26 May 2026

The latest edition of BGCI’s education magazine Roots is now available. This issue focuses on cultural heritage within botanic gardens and highlights how cultural heritage can be a powerful and necessary tool to enrich the way that we engage with our visitors, provide opportunities to engage new audiences, and provide a sense of place and purpose in the work that we do and the stories we tell.

This issue includes a range of articles from BGCI member institutions on how they have been embedding cultural heritage within their programmes and practice.

You can find earlier issues of Roots in our resources section.

Call for abstracts for next issue

The next issue of Roots will focus on mental health and wellbeing. It is well documented that spending time in nature can have a positive impact on individual health and wellbeing, offering access to green spaces and delivering programmes that provide health and wellbeing benefits is an area in which botanic gardens and arboreta are playing an increasingly important role. Do you have a project or programme of activities that you would like to share? Have you been delivering therapeutic horticulture programmes, forest bathing, green prescribing, wellbeing walks, etc. Have you designed activities that are focusing on specific audiences that suffer from isolation or mental health challenges, how is your garden ensuring that it supports the wellbeing needs of the local communities around them?

To contribute, please send a 100 word abstract to Annelies by July 15 2026.