Our 75th Anniversary

The academic year 2011-12 marks the 75th anniversary of the UC Davis Arboretum, founded in 1936 to strengthen the biological sciences at the University of California at Davis. We are planning a year of festivities to celebrate the collections and gardens of the Arboretum and to thank the members, donors, volunteers, and other supporters who keep this wonderful place growing.

75th Anniversary events

We’re kicking off the celebration with a special 75th Anniversary Plant Faire and Sale on Saturday, September 24 and a plant sale focused on Growing a Green Future on Sunday, October 9. We plan to invite donors and supporters to “hard-hat tours” of garden construction sites and special behind-the-scenes receptions at performances, lectures, and family events. Keep your eye on the calendar for details on other upcoming 75th Anniversary events.

Building a secure future

One of our main goals for the anniversary year and beyond will be to ensure a strong future for the Arboretum. We have launched the Warren G. Roberts Arboretum Legacy Society to recognize people who have created endowments or included the Arboretum in their estate planning. For information, please contact Martha Ozonoff at (530) 752-1504 or mjozonoff@ucdavis.edu.

If you would like to make a gift in honor of the Arboretum’s 75th anniversary, please contact Suzanne Ullensvang at (530) 752-8324 or sullensvang@ucdavis.edu.

Other important ways that you can support the Arboretum include:
• Joining the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum
• Making a donation to the Arboretum Enhancement Fund
• Honoring a loved one with a commemorative or memorial contribution
• Dedicating a ceramic mosaic tile or tree plaque
• Including the Arboretum in your estate plans
• Volunteering your time.

Thank you for your support!

Arboretum Stories

In honor of the Arboretum’s 75th anniversary, we invite you to share stories, reminiscences, and thoughts about your experiences with the Arboretum. Stories will be featured in the newsletter, on our website, and on signs in the garden. To share your story, email arboretum@ucdavis.edu; be sure to include your name and phone number, and include a photo if possible.

Following are brief excerpts from some stories our supporters have shared. Look for longer versions in the Arboretum newsletter.

The tradition was that every four years, February 29 was called Labor Day. Each residence unit (dorm floors, fraternities, off-campus) was assigned a work party detail somewhere on campus. In 1960, many residence units were assigned to plant the arboretum. We were given hoes, rakes, shovels, and trees. It was a day of team-building and camaraderie that culminated in a campus barbeque on the quad, all of us rubbing sore muscles unused to that type of work. When I returned for Picnic Day 2011 to celebrate my 50th year reunion, I walked the arboretum with a sense of pride and wonder about the vision that created such a lovely space on campus so many years ago.

—Sue Chelini, ‘61

One evening on an adventure to tour the Storer Garden to get plant ideas, we saw next to the garden a camel being led! We did a double take—the camel being eight feet tall—and it really was a camel! Only in Davis would you see a camel in the Arboretum!

—Nancy Foster, Arboretum volunteer

When we moved into our new home, the land around the house was completely bare. During the last 23 years I have rarely missed a, Arboretum plant sale and I have never left empty-handed. More often than not, my truck returned home loaded to the gills with native Califonia plants, Mediterranean, South African, and Australian specimens. So that by now much of my garden resembles the Arboretum on campus. And now, 23 years after moving to a sterile, almost birdless piece of land, I have a garden that attracts an amazing number and variety of birds. Every nook and cranny seems occupied by bird nests, hard to count, but certainly over 100 every season. Every year, the number of lizards and snakes (gopher, racer, garter, sharp-tailed) also increases. Planting the right plants was made easy by the folks at the Arboretum and their wonderful plant sales.

—Manfred Kusch, Sr. Lecturer Emeritus, Dept. of French and Italian

I remember a University employee cultivating around the young redwood trees with a black Percheron draft horse in the early 1940's. The arboretum certainly looked a lot hotter and drier that it does now! During the end of March or early April 1941, I saw the arboretum area brim-to-brim with brown flood water...

—Charles W. Rowe

I have observed Donna Billick's community work for many years and wished I could participate so that I could see how she coordinates many people to produce such marvelous cooperative ceramic mosaic pieces. Being invited to participate in the Art/Science Fusion project as an Arboretum volunteer was a perfect opportunity. Donna suggested I make a big tile depicting Candy Tuft 'Little Gems', and then before I knew it, Donna sliced pieces off and gave them to two other volunteers to help make Little Gems. Just like that, we were cooperating. All three of us made flower clusters, I made most of the background leaves and glazed them, someone else added an insect, and another person put the pieces together and put the grout between the sections. Our one tile was indeed a group effort!

— Christy DeWees, Arboretum volunteer

Years ago, I was helping a neighbor get rid of her extensive potted cactus collection. Marilynn Vilas and I borrowed Nancy Crosby’s pickup so we could take the plants over to the Arboretum nursery. We had to use a dolly to move one large Opuntia plant. We couldn’t get the tailgate closed, but we thought the weight of the plant and dolly would keep everything in place. Everything was fine as we drove along Fifth Street until we hit a dip around A Street. The cactus shot out the back, on its dolly. Traffic behind us luckily was able to screech to a halt. A young man ran up to help us, and we did get to the nursery, cracking jokes about Lucy and Ethel all the way.