Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy

Welcome to the Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy

The mission of the Conservancy is to facilitate the acquisition and introduction to North America of threatened and vulnerable ornamental plants of known wild provenance as well as from cultivated sources. These plants will be maintained as a living reference collection for public educational and scientific purposes with the goal of conservation through cultivation via distribution to botanic and public gardens, botanists and researchers plus professional and amateur gardeners and horticulturists.

Fall Fund Drive 2026 — An Expansive Time at FRBC

Autumn is here! This year’s fundraiser highlights not just the important collecting work, but also the propagation of the plants we bring back to our facilities. This is the ongoing, never-ending, careful work our small team undertakes every single day at the Conservancy.

Mid-October 2026 Collecting Trip

Have you been longing to add a rare Japanese mountain plant or wetland fern to your collection? As FRBC members, our supporters will be the first to have access to plants we’ll be collecting in Japan in October when we travel with our esteemed colleagues from the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden. This is our first-ever trip to Japan, and it promises to yield dozens of new species for the FRBC collection.

January 1, 2027 FRBC Expansion

To prepare for the January 1st expansion, FRBC will be taking on the existing Farm staff including two full time and three part time employees to ensure the smooth transition of Farm operations into the Conservancy on day one. Day-to-day maintenance of the greenhouses, propagation, gardens, and irrigation infrastructure will continue. Meanwhile we will have the added task of preparing new infrastructure to ensure your shopping experience continues under the Conservancy umbrella in January.

While we continue to tend the FRBC plant collection, we will increase the Conservancy’s capacity as of January 1, 2027 when the generous contribution by Kelly Dodson and Sue Milliken of all of Far Reaches Farm’s plants being donated to the Conservancy will take place. As we prepare to receive these plants, we need to raise $60,000 this fall.
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Momentous News from Sue Milliken and Kelly Dodson

As Founding Directors of FRBC, Sue Milliken and Kelly Dodson are thrilled to share the news that Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy is about to fulfill one huge part of its destiny. Beginning January 1, 2027 all plant sales and nursery operations managed by Far Reaches Farm will be transferred to Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy. Sue and Kelly have been working towards this goal since they founded FRBC in 2017 and thanks to a lot of hard work from the FRBC Board and staff over the last two years, it is finally going to happen.

We’ve put together Answers to FAQs and will answer a couple right here. You will still be able to buy plants as before, as we are moving the FRF shopping platform over to FRBC where it will be the same as you are used to using. There will be one big change which this transfer will allow us to do and that is as a benefit of membership, members will get early notification when new plants are added to the website.
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Join Kelly in the Far Reaches Collectors Garden

Now in its third year, FRBC's Collectors Garden has come into its own! Earlier this season, Founding Director Kelly Dodson gave this video tour to show us some of the highlights.

In March 2026, our Collections Manager Silas Zoeller traveled to Chile on a seed-collecting expedition alongside colleagues from the University of Washington Botanic Garden and Heronswood. Thanks to generous donor support, this was our first post-Covid collecting trip—and the seeds have already arrived safely.

The Chilean seeds were sown the very same day they arrived.

This is the same care that has grown our collection to include thousands of taxa, representing extraordinary diversity of plants gathered from around the world. Each one is carefully propagated, studied, and shared to ensure it continues to exist for future generations.

This year, you have the opportunity to be part of the Chile seed-collecting story by becoming a member during this spring membership drive.

Your contributions last year made this trip possible, and now the real work begins: germination, careful cultivation, and eventually adding these plants to the living collection and sharing them with botanic gardens, researchers, and home gardeners. If you are already one of our valued members, we invite you to consider increasing your donation to support this important project. Your contribution will ensure the Chilean collection thrives in the Conservancy’s care, and that existing collections are distributed, furthering our conservation mission.

Our work is grounded in these core areas:
Acquisition – sourcing rare plants through expeditions, partnerships, and cultivation
Conservation – propagating and maintaining living collections
Distribution – sharing plants with institutions and the public
Education - in-person events at the Conservancy, webinars and lectures

Will you join us?

Your membership directly supports plant conservation, research, and the growth of this living collection, with a special focus this year on seed and spores collected last month in Chile

Thank you for being part of this effort!
Sue Milliken, Kelly Dodson, Silas Zoeller & the Far Reaches Crew

P.S. We’re in this for the long haul. Your support makes it possible. Click here to Become a Member

P.P.S. If you recently renewed your membership, thank you!