Gar­den mon­u­ments are fac­ing many prob­lems aris­ing from longterm cul­ti­va­tion and not at least cli­mate change: death of trees due to pro­longed droughts, late frosts, and extreme heat. Branitz Park, a unique cul­tur­al land­scape shaped by Fürst Pück­ler in 1845/46 is claim­ing loss of sev­er­al valu­able trees, indi­vid­u­al­ly select­ed and plant­ed since 1846 by one of the most famous Ger­man land­scape archi­tects of the 19th cen­tu­ry, Her­mann Fürst von Pück­ler-Muskau. To ensure the con­ser­va­tion of these resilient geno­types and vari­eties, we are col­lab­o­rat­ing with the col­leagues from the Bau­mu­ni­ver­sität of Foun­da­tion Pück­ler Muse­um — Branitz Park and Palace (SFPM) on mul­ti­pli­ca­tion of indi­vid­ual tree geno­types from Fürst-Pück­ler-Park Branitz. The Späth-Arbore­tum of Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin pro­vides an excep­tion­al resource with 1,100 tree and shrub species and over 40 years of exper­tise in in vit­ro cul­ture. Branitz con­tributes decades of prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence in field cul­ti­va­tion and tree nurs­ery management.

Our Key Objec­tives are:

Select his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant trees and vari­eties due to their growth characteristics

• Pro­duce true-to-type, root-grown (i.e. not graft­ed) trees to pro­duce sta­bile and resilient plants
• Estab­lish in vit­ro cul­tures when tra­di­tion­al veg­e­ta­tive prop­a­ga­tion fails, prop­a­ga­tion mate­r­i­al is scarce or only sea­son­al­ly available
• Com­ple­ment or replace affect­ed sin­gle plants by com­pa­ra­ble trees from the Späth-Arbore­tum of Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin
• Set up a liv­ing col­lec­tion and pre­serve the trees for the future