UC Davis has been named “Tree Campus USA” for the sixth* year in a row by the Arbor Day Foundation! The Tree Campus USA program recognizes college and university campuses that effectively manage their campus trees, develop connectivity with the community beyond campus borders to foster healthy urban forests, and strive to engage their student population utilizing service learning opportunities centered on campus, and community forestry efforts.

The article, featuring information about this spring season’s theme — 40 low-water plants you’ve (probably) never heard of — lets readers know about the diverse plant inventory available at our nursery. Read the excerpt by Sacramento Bee Home and Garden writer Debbie Arrington.

Last Saturday, January 24, 2015, students and members of the Environmental Club at UC Davis assisted staff from the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden (APG) in planting a strip of landscape along the curve of Garrod Drive just outside the Vet Med horse corral and across from our teaching nursery.

Plants are curious creatures. Unlike us, they cannot get up and get a drink of water when they are parched. By nature, they are rooted to the spot and rely on Mother Nature or a nearby gardener to supply water. Here are five tips for establishing new plants to make your garden truly drought tolerant:

Today, January 9, 2015, a team from UC Davis Civil and Industrial Services, led by Matt Hayes, operations engineer, removed the old Arboretum boat dock. It’s been hanging on for quite some time, but uneven, shaky footing combined with rotting wood and a weak attachment to land made the dock too unsafe for our visitors.

Despite the high winds and long-lasting storms, our campus fared the latest weather event well until about 7 pm last night (December 11, 2014) when a large stone pine came down on Surge II located west of the Silo.

No one is complaining about the rain, let’s make that clear! But, when you get as much as we have lately, without much of a break in between, it can wreak havoc on a campus the size of ours with the number of trees that we have. Luckily our Arboretum and Public Garden teams work year-round maintaining our trees and landscapes in preparation for weather events like these.

UC researchers study a variety of plants at the UC Davis Plant Science field research station to test plants' ability to thrive with different levels of water.

Construction has begun on the first part of a multi-year plan to improve access and create campus- and visitor-friendly features at the west end of the Arboretum. The area is part of an exciting initiative zone that contains several large, campus-funded projects.

This path will be closed intermittently again in mid-January in order to complete construction on the bridge. The creation of a small bridge will close a portion of the north side of the Arboretum loop—in the Mediterranean Collection—starting October 20, 2014 through mid-November.