Plant Heritage aims to raise £10,000 in Earth Raise 2026
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William Murray, Kate Campbell and Sally-Anne Rees
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Helen Hutchings Cox (HelenLikesPlants)
Plant Heritage is aiming to raise £10,000 as part of the Big Give Earth Raise 2026 campaign, which launches at midday on Earth Day, 22 April 2026, and runs for one week.
The campaign includes a match-funding opportunity, meaning every £5,000 raised will be doubled to £10,000, directly supporting vital plant conservation work across the UK.
As part of the initiative, sustainability adviser and gardener Helen Hutchings Cox (HelenLikesPlants) will collaborate with Plant Heritage and its National Collection holders to create content showcasing ongoing conservation efforts.
In addition, the designers of the Plant Heritage Missing Collector Garden at RHS Chelsea Flower Show, the Planting Design Collective, will join trustee Sally Flatman for a behind-the-scenes event exploring the creation of a show garden.
The charity highlights the urgent need to protect plant biodiversity, noting that many cultivated plants have already disappeared from sale, placing increased importance on conservation schemes such as National Plant Collections and Plant Guardians.
Funds raised will support expanding these programmes, recruiting and training volunteers, strengthening research into at-risk plants, and improving access to conservation data for wider public benefit.
What will we do with the funds?
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Recruit more people to become National Collection holders, so we can keep more plants safe. We’ll be targeting plants where there isn’t yet a Collection, and those that benefit wildlife. We also want to create more back-up Collections for when crises like storms and floods hit, and shared Collections for community groups so more people benefit
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Expand our Plant Guardian scheme, which is a great way for anyone to get involved in plant conservation by protecting just one or a few rare plants
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Recruit, train and support more volunteers, to work alongside our small staff team, so we can scale up our conservation schemes quickly and provide support to Collection holders and Plant Guardians when they need it most
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Expand our research into plants at risk of disappearing, and into climate change implications. We also plan to invest in our website so we can make more of the unique data we hold available for others to use.
How much will make a difference?
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£25 will help us register a new plant in our Plant Guardian scheme;
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£50 will help cover the travel costs for one of our volunteers who support National Collection holders
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£100 will pay for one of our free online workshops, so we can teach more people how to care for plants
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£1,000 will help Recruit, train and support two volunteer Collection Coordinators so that they can help local Collection Holders
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£2,000 would support our public campaigns and digital output to make our unique data more accessible
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£6,000 allows our Conservation Advisers to support both existing and new Collection Holders
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£10,000 would help to establish and support 33 existing and new National Plant Collections, allowing us to protect over 4000 garden plants.