Blooming now in the arboretum are several large arrays of blue flowered ground covers in the Borage family. They make a stunning effect, especially if you adore carpets of little blue flowers as I do.
There are 146 genera in this family with roughly 2000 species including garden favorites such as Star Flower, Borage, and Forget-Me-Nots, Myosotis, which are annuals and can be grown in the sun. 

Rebecca Alexander is the Plant Answer Line librarian in the Elisabeth C. Miller Library. In addition to providing reference services, she works on acquisitions, cataloging, and a wide assortment of tasks including editing Miller Library and other publications, and updating the library’s database of questions and answers.
Rebecca grew up in Seattle and spent some of her early childhood years living near the current site of the Douglas greenhouses at the Center for Urban Horticulture. 

The sweetest little teardrop trailer you ever saw!
Lovely work by Saltbox Designs. Stay tuned for more pictures as we continue working to bring chickens to the UW Farm! 

By John A. Wott, Director Emeritus
The Center for Urban Horticulture officially began in 1980 with the arrival of Dr. Harold B. Tukey as the founding Director. He was given an office in the northeast corner (first floor) of Winkenwerder Hall in the College of Forestry Dean’s complex. His administrative assistant, Sally Dickman, was nearby.
When the first two new faculty arrived in 1981– John A. 

1)  Chaenomeles cathayensis                   Chinese Quince

This deciduous shrub is native to slopes and forest margins in western Hubei Province.
Light pink flowers in spring are followed by large oblong fruit which are unpalatable raw, but make fragrant jams and jellies when cooked.
Like other quince, Chaenomeles cathayensis’ arching branches are armed with stiff thorns.
Two specimens can be seen in the old field nursery south of the Crab Apple Meadow near Arboretum Drive. 

When she’s not at her day job, you can usually find Julie Bresnan on the hunt for an elusive rare plant. Julie volunteers for the Rare Plant Care and Conservation program of the UW Botanic Gardens, collecting data on rare plant populations native to Washington and collecting seeds to add to the Miller Seed Vault in Seattle.
She began as a rare plant monitor in 2004 and trained as a seed collector in 2007. 

The UW student chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration’s (SER-UW) native plant nursery is located on campus at the Center for Urban Horticulture (CUH). It is a student run operation that provides plants to the on-campus restoration projects that SER-UW manages. This year, with the support of a Campus Sustainability Fund grant, the nursery is expanding by building a new hoop house, growing more plants from seed and cuttings, and increasing its opportunities for volunteer involvement. 

Shovels, picks and hammers will be brought out this month to forge the final section of the Yesler Swamp trail, a much-anticipated finale to years of planning and fundraising.
Yesler Swamp, the 6-acre wooded wetland along the eastern border of the Center for Urban Horticulture has captivated local citizens, restoration ecologists and leaders at the University of Washington Botanic Gardens for close to a decade. 

As the idea of outdoor early childhood programs gains ground, Fiddleheads Forest School has been the recipient of increased media attention from across the country. We are so glad that, from our small school in the University of Washington Botanic Garden, we are able to contribute to a wider conversation about learning in nature, and the nature of learning. However, the media’s perspective is inevitably limited; a reporter visits for a day or two at most, which may allow them to describe the general gestalt of our program and the excitement around this trend, but misses the meaning and impact of this kind of experience over time. 

1)  Pinus greggii

This three-needle pine from northeastern Mexico is closely akin to P. patula but less ornamental.  Its oval-conical cone clusters stay closed on the branch for several years.  This specimen and the others described here can be found within Crabapple Meadow, along the east side of Arboretum Drive.

2)  Pinus jeffreyi

Native mainly of California in the Sierra Nevada and Siskiyous, this lofty tree is said to grow to 200 feet in the wild.