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Blog & News Articles

Blog & News Articles

Graphic of Phase 1

Preparations for waterway maintenance and enhancement project begin

In preparation for phase one of the Arboretum Waterway Maintenance and Enhancement Project, the water level has dropped a couple of feet throughout the Arboretum waterway. Not wanting to the upset the wildlife that has now made the Arboretum Waterway home, the campus team working on this project is releasing water only from the dam on the west end of the waterway while keeping the influx of the campus’s recycled water constant.
Sustainable Culture Team

Learning by Leading Program update 2015-2016

We believe that students learn best by leading.

Members of the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, in addition to other loyal supporters, helped us provide internships to the over 80 students participating in our Learning by Leading Program over the 2015-16 school year. Here is a recap of how these students added richness to our landscapes, improved our outreach efforts, and leveraged staff resources.

 

Arboretum landscape turns laboratory

Dr. Rachel Vannette and lab members are studying microscopic organisms in the nectar of California fuchsia (Epilobium canum). They want to know if the microscopic composition of the nectar varies throughout the flowers’ age and whether it changes as a result of being exposed to pollinators.
Ellen Zagory with Kristin Yanker-Hansen

Zagory receives horticulture award

Each year the California Horticultural Society awards someone who has made a significant contribution to horticulture in California. This year, the honor went to our own Ellen Zagory, Director of Public Horticulture, for her work on developing and promoting Arboretum All-Stars.
Plants west of Mrak Hall

Mix and match plantings for interest and easy care

  • by Katie Ferguson Hetrick
Created by GATEways Horticulturist Ryan Deering along with our campus landscape architects, Sustainable Horticulture Learning by Leading students, talented volunteers, and accomplished Grounds and Landscape Services staff, these landscapes demonstrate the craft of designing interesting landscapes from a relatively short list of ornamental plants combined in different ways to create dramatic displays.
Pitch-and-Perfect

Pitch-and-Plant contest with the Horticulture Innovation Lab

Like to garden? On campus this summer? We’re inviting the UC Davis community to tell us your creative ideas for what you would plant in one of our raised beds, if you were to get your hands dirty at the Horticulture Innovation Lab Demonstration Center. We are inviting you to pitch us your idea for one of our small garden beds. Our demonstration center currently displays vegetables from Africa and Asia, along with agricultural tools that small-scale farmers use in other countries. If you haven’t seen it, come take a look!

Picnic Day 2016

Just about every year leading up to Picnic Day, the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden interns and employees design a float around that year’s  theme. This year’s float celebrated the uniqueness of the Arboretum and Public Garden with the overarching theme of “Cultivating our Authenticity.”
Shirley Maus

California foothills collection renewed

Thanks to an endowment created by Shirley Maus —longtime Arboretum supporter and volunteer — you will notice a renewal of our California Foothills Collection. Shirley’s ancestors resided in the foothills region of California since about the time California became a state in 1850. One side of her family lived north of the Consumnes River in the El Dorado area, the other side came from south of the river in Amador. With that history, it’s easy to understand why Shirley has always taken a particular interest in this collection.