It’s an early winter morning at the Center for Urban Horticulture greenhouse. While the sun considers rising, Sarah Shank greets her seedlings. Fueled by a passion for growing plants and her first cup of coffee, she describes her quiet mornings watering rare native plants as the perfect way to begin her workday. The current plants she tends to, Astragalus sinuatus (Whited’s milk-vetch) and Eriogonum codium (Umtanum buckwheat), she grew from seed and each day begins with observing them. 

1)   Abies bornmuelleriana                                                                Turkish Fir

This species is allied to the Caucasian Fir (A. Nordmanniana), but with some characteristics of the Greek Fir (A. cephalonica), notably the resinous buds and glabrous shoots.
It has a small range in northwestern Asia Minor, where it forms forests on the Bithynian Olympus.
With regards to our collections at the Arboretum, we have a few specimens in the Northwest Pinetum, as well as the one shown here residing below the Pacific Connections New Zealand Garden. 

A millennia-old arboricultural practice is alive and well at the SER-UW Native Plant Nursery: Coppicing. 
Humans have coppiced trees for 10,000 years, estimates esteemed arborist and author William Logan Bryant. His recent book, Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees, details this traditional practice with passion and reverence.
In the pre-Industrial era all over the globe, coppicing was the cutting back of a tree or shrub close to ground level in order to obtain a crucial, life-giving harvest: stems, canes and branches to be used for firewood, to build fences, furniture and bridges, and to produce baskets and rope, among many other essentials. 

1)  Leucothoe davisiae                                                                                   Sierra Laurel

This evergreen member of the Heath family is native to the mountains of eastern and northern California where it grows in bogs and seeps.
The hot-pink buds will open in spring to reveal white urn-shaped flowers.
You can find Leucothoe davisiae in the Cascadia Forest.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2)  Magnolia sargentiana var. 

Several genera at the Washington Park Arboretum are part of a multi-site nationally-accredited plant collection administered through the Plant Collections Network of the American Public Gardens Association. The Plant Collections Network is one of the most significant networks of cultivated living plant collections on Earth and is used for taxonomic studies, evaluation, breeding, and other research. The Network stewards diverse living collections at public gardens across North America to safeguard plants and share them with the world. 

Whether you’re aiming to beautify your yard or hoping to decrease your soil erosion rate, planting a tree would offer benefits beyond your intention. Trees are the foundation of maintaining a sustainable wellbeing. When you plant a tree, you are providing a new source of oxygen, introducing an efficient way to rid the air and soil of pollutants, and contributing to habitat in tree canopies for wildlife. 

1)  Chamaecyparis pisifera  ‘Plumosa Compressa’                      Dwarf Sawara Cypress

This cultivar of the Japanese native, Sawara Cypress, has soft blue-green foliage.
Growing only one to six inches per year, this 50 year-old specimen can be seen just at the entrance to the Graham Visitors Center along Arboretum Drive.

2)  Corylus maxima  ‘Atropurpurea Superba’                                   Purple Giant Filbert

This cultivar of the Giant Filbert, or Hazel, produces long red male catkins in winter before the bright red young leaves emerge. 

Fred Hoyt, UW Botanic Gardens Director and Orin and Althea Soest Chair for Urban Horticulture, has announced he will retire at the end of January, 2021. Please join us in showing our appreciation for Fred’s service and congratulating him on his retirement.

We invite you to enjoy our “Game of Groves”.
Can you name the following iconic tree groves based on the photos shown and hints below?

#1)
I am a grove of nine broadleaf evergreen trees with berries that are commonly used as Christmas greens.  My location is an “island” in the middle of the ocean surrounding our five Pacific Rim flora.  

1)  Coprosma propinqua                                       Mingimingi

Coprosma is a genus of about 90 species of shrubs and trees found in various Pacific regions, including New Zealand and Australia.  They range from trees to low-growing spreading shrubs and those with a divaricating habit.
A member of the plant family Rubiaceae, C. propinqua is found in swampy areas and near streams throughout New Zealand.  The leaves are very small and oblong and the berries are a translucent blue color.