The American Horticultural Society has announced the five winners of their 2017 Book Awards.  Read about these great new books and visit the Miller Library to check them out.
The seven-member award review committee consisted of horticulturists, garden book writers and publicists, and one horticultural librarian (me!) from across the country.  We met virtually and by conference call in January to review some 40 nominees – it was both an exciting and challenging project. 

The long-term success of an institution often resides in the vision, dexterity, intellect, ambition and intuitiveness of an individual. On February 22, 2017, Valerie Easton announced that she was no longer writing her weekly column in the Pacific NW Magazine, bringing her 25 year career there to an end. For me, it seems like Val only recently started as the Library Manager at the Elisabeth C. 

1)   Cornus mas                     Cornelian Cherry

A native of Europe, C. mas has been cultivated for centuries in Britain. Flowers are produced in February and March on the leafless stems in short-stalked umbels from the joints of the previous year’s wood.
Oblong-ellipsoid, fleshy, bright red fruit are produced in late summer, and are edible when ripe.
Found throughout the Arboretum, these shrubs or small trees are easily identified at this time. 

Corokia cotoneaster may not be the first plant that you notice in the landscape, but it might be the plant keeps your attention the longest. This plant’s divaricate branching (having branches of wide angles) and its tiny dark evergreen leaves give it a sparse and angular look which is not a common sight among the green gardens in the Pacific Northwest. 

The Washington Park Arboretum has long been known as a “tree place.” In fact, two sister volunteers from Mercer Island (Lee Clark and Marion “Nukie” Fellows) were instrumental in getting bumper stickers printed in the 1990s which said “Tree Cheers for the Arboretum”. The Arboretum, as with every park in Seattle, has a matrix of native plants composed of the four primary Pacific Northwest forest trees: Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), Western red cedar (Thuja plicata), Western hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla), and Big-leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum). 

1)  Corylopsis glabrescens                                    Winter Hazel

This native of Korea and Japan teases us with flower buds that seem to be just on the edge of opening – for weeks!
The Joseph Witt Winter Garden contains multiple species of Corylopsis so that people may compare and appreciate the subtle differences in form and flower color the genus Corylopsis offers.

2)  Pieris japonica                                                          Lily of the Valley Shrub

The spring flowers and often the new growth of Pieris can be quite showy, but the buds themselves decorate our gardens throughout the winter months. 

SMEA postgraduate course, Spring 2017
Fish in the global food system SMEA 55OB (2 Credits)
*Fish is taken in the broadest sense to mean food from marine and aquatic ecosystems (i.e. finfish, shellfish, other aquatic and marine animals, and aquatic and marine plants)
Professor Edward H Allison/School of Marine and Environmental Affairs/College of the Environment/ Email: eha1@uw.edu
Zach Koehn/ PhD Student/School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences/ Email: zkoehn@uw.edu
Course Timetable:
All Fridays, from March 31st to June 2nd
10:00 – 12:00 am – Classroom sessions on 3/31, 4/7, 4/14, 4/28, 5/5, 5/12, 5/26, 6/2
Field visits (all or part-day – tbc) – 4/21, 5/19
Poster presentations: 6/2, 12:00 – 13:30
Optional: ‘Fish on Film’ evenings, once every 2 weeks  – timetable to be decided. 

The Witt Winter Garden was originally designed and planted in 1949. In the late 1980s the garden was named after Joseph A. Witt, an Arboretum curator who had a special interest in winter ornamental plants. Here is a small sampling of plants to be enjoyed now in the Winter Garden.
Download a map and plant list at:
https://botanicgardens.uw.edu/washington-park-arboretum/gardens/joseph-a-witt-winter-garden/
1)   Chimonanthus praecox                (Wintersweet)

The 15’ tall arching stems host beautiful and aromatic creamy, yellowish flowers. 

New Zealand has a large number of shrubs with small tough leaves and wiry interlacing branches – divaricates. Some even have brown or grey new growth, giving a dead-like appearance. It is suggested that this may be a defensive mechanism to deter browsing moa (extinct flightless birds).
1)  Coprosma propinqua                (Mingimingi)

A visiting New Zealand scholar once described Coprosma as “a genus without morals that hybridizes incessantly” as she was politely telling us she didn’t think we were actually growing true Coprosma propinqua.