DATA IS POWERful

Based on information received from member gardens who shared their Fiscal Year 2020-21 data with the Association’s Garden Benchmarking platform, this is what we know about the hypothetical “median” public garden.

Of course the “Median Public Garden” isn’t your public garden, but Benchmarking will allow you to see your garden in relation to your peers in your area and around the country.

This data is invaluable to you, your peers, your Association, our advocacy efforts, and the future of public horticulture.

Find out about the Median Data Collected in the FY20-21 Multi-Year Trend Report.

Download the FY20-21 Median Garden Multi-Year Report Here.

Attendance & Programming Garden Size
  • 116K in annual visitation
  • 65% membership retention
  • 3,985 Member Households
  • 2,027 education/programming participation
  • 1,090 formal education (K-12) participation
  • 149 volunteers providing 5,112 hours of work
  • 1.2M people served within a 25 mile radius of garden
  • 1.99 acres of display garden per FTE Horticulture staff
  • 18% of garden space as display area
  • 50% of display garden area as “high maintenance”
  • 2,530 Living Plant Taxa
  • 6,000 Herbarium Plant Samples
Revenue Expenses
  • $3.3M in annual operating revenue
  • 88% expense to revenue ratio
  • $1.5M in earned revenue
  • $629K in private donation revenue per FTE staff
  • 534 Total Donors
  • $38.5K in special events revenue per FTE staff
  • $2337K in net membership revenue per FTE staff
  • $27K in net food services revenue
  • $91K in net gift shop revenue
  • $80K in net rentals revenue
  • $3.38M operating expenses
  • 20% on administration expenses
  • 6% on Education programs
  • 16% on horticulture
  • $99K per Garden Paid Staff FTE
  • 34 staff FTE
  • 32% Horticulture
  • 11% Administrative
  • 10% education
  • 5% Development

Start today

What will you learn about your public garden’s place in public horticulture? Where can you grow? Where can you safely prune? What areas can you cultivate for better production?

Garden Benchmarking

Enter data and get reports about garden’s size, location, employees, volunteers and more.

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Compensation & Benefits

Compare your employee’s compensation and benefit packages to your peer gardens.

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Conservation & Biodiversity

Establish best practice parameters for public gardens in pursuing conservation and biodiversity.

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