Insights & Resources
The latest news, insights, resources, & events.
Newsletter: January 2025
From new QR code support to insights from our user survey, discover the latest Hortis updates and key takeaways from our recent visits and events.
Newsletter: November 2024
November brought exciting updates to Hortis! Discover the new simplified accession flow, enhancements, and inspiring success stories.
Newsletter: October 2024
Introducing the latest in Hortis' commitment to enhancing efficiency and accuracy: an update designed to make accessioning new plant material faster and simpler than ever.
December 2024 Events
Don’t miss the chance to register for our Hortis Workshop in Amsterdam upcoming on December 11th or the webinar on December 3rd! Looking forward to seeing you there!
Newsletter: August 2024
Highlights for August include fields for collectors and plant material sex. You can also recap our inspiring time at the 8th Global Botanic Gardens Congress in Singapore. Plus, a new upcoming mapping feature that will allow you to draw bed locations directly on your map!
The 8th Global Botanic Garden Congress
Amongst a treasure trove of fresh ideas and inspiration on how we can collectively reduce the loss of plant biodiversity, we reconnected with old friends and made new relationships. Kudos to the organizers, Singapore Botanic Gardens and Botanic Gardens Conservation International, for making the congress such a memorable experience.
Maximize Your Zoo's Impact with Hortis: A Webinar Celebrating Your Success Stories!
Are you interested in improving your plant records and visitor engagement? If so, you were in great company at our recent webinar! We also have exciting news: we’ve extended our special subscription offer exclusively for Species360 members. Read on to discover how simple it is to embark on your plant records journey today!
Newsletter: July 2024
July has been an eventful month at Hortis, packed with new features to help you save more time when record-keeping. Read about July’s highlights below, including our recent webinar held for the zoo community looking to start their plant records journey.
Share your collection online now: June 2024 Highlights
The standout feature of the month was the introduction of Public Sites, a powerful tool that allows you to share your collection online. In addition to Public Sites, new batch actions and user filters have been added to help you manage your data. Updated pricing plans are unveiled, and we are back from another successful annual conference with the American Public Gardens Association (APGA). Read more about June’s highlights below.
Newsletter: May 2024
In May, we added some more batch actions to help you make changes to multiple records. We also opened up early access to “Public Sites” and will make the ability to share your collection with visitors available to more users in June. Read more about this month’s highlights below.
Webinar: Sharing Your Garden's Collection with Public Sites
Are you eager to maximize your garden's impact by making your plant records public? In our last webinar, we delved into the potential of showcasing your garden's collection. If you missed our session, here are some key takeaways.
Newsletter: April 2024
As we stride into May, we continue to respond to your feedback and feature requests. April’s highlight was the Actions Menu. Designed to help streamline your data management, this feature allows you to take swift and precise actions on your records with just a few clicks or taps. Read more about how it can help your day-to-day recordkeeping workflows.You can also sign up to our next webinar about sharing your plant collection with the public. If you requested early access to public sites, then stay tuned for more details soon!
Newsletter: March 2024
As we step out of March, we are delighted to share the exciting news of our new partnership with Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) to help global botanical gardens protect plant diversity. This year, we also celebrate a significant milestone at Species360: the 50th anniversary of supporting global wildlife conservation through record-keeping and science initiatives. Behind the scenes, we are working on some major features, such as the ability to share your collection with the public. Read more about this month’s highlights and how to get early access to your public site.
Webinar: A New Dawn for Plant Records at Zoos and Aquariums
As well as being a beautiful backdrop in the zoo, plants play a vital role in creating natural enclosures, participating in educational programs, supporting animal nutrition and enrichment, and contributing to species conservation efforts. Zoos and aquariums often face challenges when it comes to botanical record-keeping, normally caused by inadequate record-keeping tools and a lack of resources.
Newsletter: February 2024
Building on the recent release of the shared taxonomic backbone, we have added factual data to help you with additional details about your taxa, drastically reducing the time required for you to source this information from external sources. From natural distribution to IUCN Red List status, you can more easily look at the impact of your collection.
Newsletter: January 2024
Maintaining a high standard of data quality in plant records is a difficult challenge for many. This is why we’re continuously working to improve this situation for you and your team. Throughout January, we introduced several features to help refine your data quality and get the most out of it. We also added a new feedback submission feature and a support article to guide you through cleaning up your scientific names. Below you will find more about how January’s highlights can help you manage your collection, including a guest blog from Wave Hill.
Newsletter: September 2024
This month, we're thrilled to announce the introduction of a more efficient and enjoyable mapping experience with the option for users to draw their own beds directly in Hortis— Botanical GIS is finally here. We're also excited to participate as sponsors at two October events: the upcoming American Public Garden Association Plant Collections Symposium in Chicago and the Annual Association of Zoological Horticulture Conference in Phoenix.
Wishing all our valued Hortis subscribers a very Happy New Year! 🎉
As we welcome 2024, we would like to take a moment to express our gratitude for your continued trust and support. We are proud to have been a part of your record-keeping journey, no matter your mission.
Newsletter: November 2023
In November, we introduced trash pages to give you more confidence in deleting and retrieving records. We've also made technical progress behind the scenes with extending shared taxonomy to species level, which we expect to be released soon. Read on to learn more about how to use the trash pages, and to learn about our special webinar for the BGANZ and Pacific Coast community.
Newsletter: October 2023
October has been a busy month for the team and we released several noteworthy updates – from data tables, donor/supplier autocomplete, and identification fields – each of which is designed to help you be more productive and accurate in your record keeping.
Newsletter: September 2023
As the seasons shift, our commitment to enhancing your experience in Hortis remains unchanged. In September, we introduced two big features, shared higher ranking taxonomy and interpretation fields, that have a huge impact on the community. Read more about these below.
Newsletter: August 2023
While the summer continues in the northern hemisphere, our team at Hortis has also taken a brief respite to recharge. In August, two new features were released that enable you to record mass plantings, and set your personal and organisational profile photos.
Newsletter: July 2023
Our engineering team has grown, and so has Hortis – bringing you a host of new features based on your feedback. This month, we introduced enhanced tag filtering, user deactivation, support for recording IPEN numbers, and the ability to load custom maps. Read more about July’s highlights and how they can help your garden.
Newsletter: June 2023
Taxon tagging, several improved map flows, and the ability to create new sites were all features released in June. We continue to make improvements, and this month’s mapping focus has opened up a number of powerful ways to manage your collection directly from the map. Read more about June’s highlights below.
Newsletter: May 2023
The improved handling of taxonomy in Hortis was this month’s star, allowing gardens to start recording supplemental taxonomic data for their plant collection. We also launched our new referral program, giving you the opportunity to earn discounts by introducing other institutions to Hortis.
Newsletter: April 2023
In April, our team focused on enhancing the user experience and unveiled our brand-new logo, carefully crafted to reflect our values and mission. Read more about April’s highlights below.
Newsletter: March 2023
In March, we added features to help make managing your plant collection even easier. This includes an enhanced dashboard with team activity, easier tag management with filters, and the ability to filter plant materials based on their condition.
Newsletter: February 2023
In February, we continued making improvements throughout Hortis. With our new map preview, you can map positions while accessioning, as well as view the location of your material on the individual record. We also released the ability to delete unwanted bed locations. Read more about February’s highlights below.
Hortis × Species360: Questions and Answers
Earlier this year, the Hortis team joined Species360 to broaden their product portfolio to include botanical record-keeping.On February 1st, we hosted two webinars to share more information about what this means for the zoological and botanical communities and its collective impact on species conservation. Over 350 registrants from 27 countries joined us to learn about this coming-together and our plans for the future.
Newsletter: January 2023
The Hortis team kicked off 2023 by joining Species360. Thanks to your valuable feedback, we made some requested improvements and deployed a couple of new features. These included accession sorting and filtering, joining and leaving collection sites, and the ability to change your organisation name. Read more about January’s highlights below.
Exciting news: The Hortis team joins Species360
Species360 is pleased to announce the addition of the plant collection platform Hortis to our product portfolio. Based in the UK and the Netherlands, the team developing Hortis will continue their exciting work together with the software engineers and conservation scientists at Species360.
Newsletter: November & December 2022
We concluded the last two months of 2022 with some hotly-requested features from the community. Now you can create tags for your records, manage your members’ permissions, and start creating more powerful maps with filters.
Newsletter: October 2022
With a busy conference season and new gardens joining every week, we have saved up two months’ worth of highlights to share with you. During September and October we introduced advanced plant material filters and made significant overall improvements across the whole app. We also released our brand new Hortis.com website.
Hortis at the 7th Global Botanic Garden Congress
Under the tagline “Influence & Action: Botanic Gardens as Agents of Change”, 500 delegates from 38 countries came together in Melbourne to explore how botanic gardens can play a greater role in shaping our future.
Newsletter: August 2022
In August, we introduced plant material condition and follow-up cycles, our new billing page, and more depth to existing features. This includes the ability to download your plant material data.
Newsletter: July 2022
In July, we released the activity log for accession records, added the ability to update your collection sites, and enabled greater control over the photos you upload.
Hortis 1.0 launched at EuroGard and APGA 2022
For more than a decade, Botanical Software has helped botanic gardens around the world with plant collection management tools, meeting garden staff at conferences, and listening to what you are struggling with in relation to your plant records.
Newsletter: June 2022
In June, our focus was on finalising mapping and photos, among the most requested features, so they could be made available to all users. We also had time to add a number of other useful capabilities, including the ability to delete accessions and plant materials, and show the full audit log for updates to plant material records.
Newsletter: May 2022
May’s edition of “What’s New In Hortis” includes the arrival of images, deaccessioning, and inviting new team members to access your collection. We have also enhanced our mapping capabilities and made a number of bug fixes. Read more about our top picks below and take the time to read the “Tip of the month” at the end of the article.
Newsletter: April 2022
In April’s “What’s New In Hortis”, our headlining feature highlight is the arrival of mapping capabilities. Also featured is the new Settings page to manage your site’s locations, as well as the ability to enter custom accession numbers. Read more about our top picks below.
Newsletter: March 2022
March is upon us, and in this month’s “What’s New In Hortis”, our feature highlights include improved scientific name search, the ability to add new site locations, and a redesigned Settings page structure. Learn more about selected picks from March below.
Newsletter: February 2022
In February’s edition of What’s New In Hortis, our feature highlights include a comprehensive audit trail for all plant collection records, a new plant material status filter, and access to experimental features. Learn more about our selected features below.
Newsletter: January 2022
We are very excited to share our first monthly What’s New In Hortis update with you. With the Hortis platform, our engineers are able to deploy new features at a high rate without you needing to take any action. This means that users all over the world will always have the latest version on their smartphone, tablet and pc.
Best wishes from the Hortis Team
As we approach the end of 2021, we would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have in some way helped us to better understand the community of botanic gardens. In our quest to improve and make life easier for all of you, your contributions and input are vital for us, so a heartfelt thank you goes out to you all.