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Abstract
Organizational memory has been studied widely but not in public gardens. If organizational memory is not managed knowledge is potentially lost when gardeners leave or retire. Organizational mission, together with design intent, provide direction for managing public gardens. Interviewing landscape architects determined they do not rely on gardeners to provide information on design intent. From their information, a foundation for determining sources of design intent in public gardens has been created. Through surveys and interviews with public garden professionals it was found that there is gardener longevity in gardens, plant recordkeeping is performed at most gardens, internal gardener training programs are minimal, and there are limited repercussions for not keeping records. Based on the literature review and results from the surveys and interviews, a protocol of open ended questions was designed to be used by public gardens and their managers to facilitate the process of organizational memory management.