The International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) members consist of thousands of growers of flowers and ornamental plants around the world who are together united by one essential goal – promoting the place of plants in people’s lives.
AIPH hosts several conferences, webinars and events such as the International Grower of the Year award throughout the year. Read about these along with the latest news about the association’s activities.
AIPH’s key aim is to stimulate demand for ornamental trees, plants and flowers worldwide. We are committed to supporting growers in achieving this by protecting and promoting the interests of the industry.
City of London Green City Briefings – Air Quality in Cities: the realistic and real benefits of plants
9 November 2021, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm GMT
AIPH, in collaboration with the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, presents the City of London Green City Briefings – a series of 8 webinars that present compelling evidence and examples of the power of ‘living green’ in delivering multiple solutions to city challenges.
Local improvements in air quality delivered by urban greening as climate change adaptation measures run alongside climate change mitigation strategies to reduce air pollution from emissions. This briefing focuses on providing clarity on what can be expected from living green within a multi-faceted approach to managing air pollution in cities.
*PROGRAMME UPDATE – New speaker for Tuesday 9th November. AIPH is delighted to welcome Dr Henrik Sjöman to the City of London Green City Briefings. Henrik’s work is mainly focused on developing knowledge of site adapted plant use for urban environments. He will speak on Urban tree diversity – species use and the role of policies, planning and nursery production. With the results of his research, Henrik works with the nursery industry to increase the range of plants available to landscape gardeners, so they do not rely on the usual ‘safe’ options.
More detail is on the speaker profile and programme pages.
Prof. Monks was initially speaking in this briefings session. Prof Monks will now be speaking at COP26 in Glasgow and will take his important message to this powerful global forum. We hope that he will be able to join us in a following series.
**PROGRAMME UPDATE – New speaker for Tuesday 9th November. AIPH is delighted to welcome Dr Henrik Sjöman to the City of London Green City Briefings.
Henrik Sjöman. Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Alnarp.Gothenburg Botanical Garden, Sweden. Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Sweden
Henrik Sjöman´s work is mainly focusing on developing knowledge of site adapted plant use for urban environments. How the capacity of different trees will vary in context to its urban environment and in delivering ecosystem services has become the prime driver in Henrik’s work and as such how to extend the knowledge of diversifying the urban treescape. Finding “plants of tomorrow” means to combine traditional plant hunting of less common species with research and evaluation; creating a diversified approach to a resilient urban forest.
Dr Tijana Blanusa, RHS Principal Horticultural Scientist
Dr Blanusa leads the Royal Horticultural Society’s Ecosystem Services Research Programme, identifying the structural and functional traits of plants that can be isolated, optimised and employed to benefit the wider environment.
Her post is based at the University of Reading (School of Agriculture, Policy and Development) where she teaches a Part 3 / MSc module on Green Infrastructure and Ecosystem Services and supervise undergraduates, masters and PhD students.
13:00 – Welcome
13:05 – Dr Henrik Sjöman
Urban tree diversity: species use and the role of policies, planning and nursery production
With growing awareness of ecosystem services and the role of green infrastructure, trees are recognised in research and in policy as a means to deliver important benefits and thus help to achieve resilience and sustainability in cities worldwide. However, in streets and parks urban trees several challenges where a changing climate, threats of insect attacks and diseases, and highly paved and often compact growing conditions create difficult situations. One of the most effective means of mitigating these problems is to increase the diversity of tree species across the urban landscape. With increased diversity, the likelihood of adaptive, healthy, strongly growing and maturing trees also increases, and thereby the expected function and provision of ecosystem services.
Species diversification should be done strategically, so that a breadth of well-suited trees is established: there is little value in increasing diversity simply to meet an arbitrary target.
The search for compatible new plant material, a comprehensive evaluation of different ecotypes of well-known, as well as more untraditional species is required. In this presentation, several examples are addressed regarding ongoing work to find and evaluate plant material suitable for future urban environments and thus a future tree population with the capacity to deliver important ecosystem services.
13:25 – Dr Tijana Blanusa
Plant traits associated with good delivery of ecosystem services: hedges case study
Dr Tijana Blanusa speaks about the science behind the knowledge of plants and their contribution to environmental issues. Her presentation will outline the mechanisms whereby plants help reduce airborne pollutant concentrations, but also the ways in which they are impacted by pollution. She will highlight RHS research on the importance of hedges’ species choice for the delivery of multiple environmental benefits, including data on the deposition of airborne particular matter (PM) onto leaf surfaces in several hedge species and in areas of various traffic intensities. This information can be used in practice to inform planting decisions in various contexts.
13:45 – Q&A
14:00 – Session close
Session 8: London Report on Climate Action – 7th December
Dr Blanusa leads the Royal Horticultural Society’s Ecosystem Services Research Programme, identifying the structural and functional traits of plants that can be isolated, optimised and employed to benefit the wider environment.
