By Abbey Hart, Nursery Special Projects Manager

You know about the Arboretum Teaching Nursery’s Plant Sales, but did you know the nursery team has myriad other special projects going on behind the scenes? Here are a few highlights of some current projects focused on growing novel trees for the Arboretum and Public Garden and the broader community. 

Since 2016, the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden has been working on a collaborative tree gene conservation project focusing on rare and threatened oaks in West Texas.

This fall, the Arboretum and Public Garden is honored to be the first to ever host the 9th International Oak Society Conference in Northern California.

The Arboretum and Public Garden is working closely with the campus planning leadership at UC Davis to develop a 70-year UC Davis Living Landscape Adaptation Plan (LLAP) that will allow us to transition the landscapes of UC Davis to a climate-ready campus.

If you’ve strolled through the Arboretum lately then you’ve probably noticed intermittent ghost-like gloves covering the tips of oak tree branches. No, those are not DIY tree decorations; they are wasp collection receptacles and all are a part of an independent study project being conducted by undergraduate entomology major Laurie Casebier in collaboration with UC Davis’ Bohart Museum of Entomology.