ANNUAL CONFERENCE TRACKS

This year’s Call for Sessions is organized around five tracks. Choosing a track is the first step of your submission and helps the Program Selection Committee route and evaluate proposals and helps attendees find the sessions most relevant to them. 

The topics listed below each track help showcase the type of content that you may find in each track but is not exhaustive. Submissions will be given the opportunity to select their primary track as well as an optional secondary track for those sessions that cross between tracks. Sessions that cross between tracks are encouraged.

Helpful tip! Sessions are more interesting and robust with multiple perspectives — consider tapping a Professional Community to round out your presentation or panel. 

INFLUENCE IN ACTION

This year’s theme-and-hot-topics track features sessions that make the case for why public gardens matter — to funders, officials, and the public. You can find more session ideas related to this year's theme as well as the below tracks on our Session Ideation webpage.

HORTICULTURE, COLLECTIONS, & CONSERVATION

Sessions on plant collections, curatorial practice, and conservation science — how gardens grow, document, protect, and share their living collections.

  • Living Collections in a Changing Climate — How adaptive curation can protect biodiversity and model climate-ready horticulture. 
  • Ex Situ Conservation: Gardens as Biodiversity Arks — How public gardens safeguard threatened plants and contribute to global conservation. 
  • Reimagining Plant Records — Using data and provenance to strengthen research, conservation, collaboration, and storytelling. 
  • Integrated Pest & Disease Management — Strategies for responding to pests and diseases that threaten plants within and beyond garden boundaries. 

LEARNING & ENGAGEMENT

Sessions on education programs, public events, interpretation, and guest engagement — how gardens teach, engage, and interact with the community.

  • Gardens as Community Anchors — Building trust and access with underserved neighbors. 
  • Teaching the Next Generation —
    K–12 and youth programming that creates lasting engagement and builds lifelong connections to plants, horticulture, and conservation.
  • Interpretation That Moves People — Storytelling, signage, and digital tools that deepen visitors' understanding and encourage engagement. 
  • Co-Creating Programs for Community Impact— Sharing expertise, decision-making, and ownership with community partners to create more relevant and lasting programs. 

REACH & RELATIONSHIPS

Sessions on communications, fundraising and development, membership, and partnerships — how gardens build relationships with the communities around them.

  • Membership through Access and Belonging — Rethinking pricing, access, and value across audiences. 
  • Measuring What Matters — Community impact metrics that go beyond attendance counts. 
  • Storytelling the Mission – Communicating the science, mission, and impact of gardens to the public, members, and donors. 
  • Funding in the Current Fiscal Environment – Assessing the risks and opportunities of current funding structures and identifying untapped opportunities. 

LEADERSHIP, STRATEGY, & OPERATIONS

Sessions on organizational leadership, planning, and internal operations — how gardens are run, staffed, and sustained.

  • Building the Public Garden Workforce — Recruitment, development, and retention strategies in public horticulture. 
  • Strategic Planning in Uncertain Times — Building plans flexible enough to survive real-world disruption and emerging opportunities. 
  • Facilities and Capital Projects — How facilities, renovations, and infrastructure investments can advance mission, access, and sustainability. 
  • Board Governance — Aligning board leadership with organizational mission and strategy, public value, and long-term influence.