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A study will catalogue plants growing in National Trust gardens

A massive "plant hunt" has begun to catalogue details of the range of plants growing in National Trust gardens across the country.

The three-year study aims to cover tens of thousands of plants at more than 80 gardens owned by the Trust - and may even "discover" varieties the organisation didn't know it had.

Many of the country's most famous gardens, including Sissinghurst in Kent and Stourhead in Wiltshire, will be taking part, the National Trust said.

Each plant will be photographed and identified by experts and the information entered into a central database, along with the GPS grid reference for its location.

The survey results - which will also cover many of the Trust's 20 working kitchen gardens - will be used to identify which rare plants, trees and vegetables need to be propagated by the Trust at its conservation centre at Knightshayes Court in Devon.

Mike Calnan, head of parks and gardens at the trust, said: "We will be able to map out the thousands of rare species of plant in the care of the National Trust which have been bred by passionate plant collectors or gathered by plant hunters on expeditions during the last 400 years or so.

"We might even 'discover' plants that we didn't know we had."

He said the survey, which will be undertaken by staff and volunteers, aims to increase the percentage of plants recorded in National Trust gardens from the current 5% to 75% over the next three years.

The "biggest and most comprehensive plant survey ever undertaken in the UK" begins on Monday at Killerton in Devon, and phase one of the project will see gardens in Devon, Cornwall, Wales, Yorkshire and the North East surveyed.

Eventually, more than 80 gardens in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be studied.