Director Sarah Reichard is leading a tour group in Costa Rica. She discovered that swarming army ants provide an easy snack for jungle birds.

“Piercing, sucking and galling!”

1)  Mites (on Sasa Bamboo and Skimmia)

Stippling and yellowing of leaves are often indicative of the presence of mites.
Feed by piercing underside of leaves and sucking chlorophyll out decreasing photosynthesis, reducing plant vigor and compromising the appearance.
Mites are not insects; they are arachnids.

2)  Galls (on Willow and Rose)

Abnormal plant growths caused by various organisms (insects, mites, fungi, etc.)
Galls are formed by increased production of normal plant hormones as response to feeding, egg-laying or disease infiltration and are often not harmful to the plant. 

Director Sarah Reichard is leading a tour group in Costa Rica. In this dispatch she recounts concocting a custom chocolate drink and encounters odoriferous wildlife.

UW Botanic Garden Director Sarah Reichard is leading a tour in Costa Rica and blogging about the flora, fauna and river adventures.

The UW Farm is the student run farm at the University of Washington. With three locations across campus, specialized sustainable agricultural activities, and weekly events, we offer exciting opportunities to the student body and local community to get involved in urban agriculture.
We are in midst of a lot of activity and growth at the Farm, and need to fill several volunteer leadership positions for the 2014-2015 school year and beyond. 

A new and reliable hybrid Hellebore for the winter garden is planted throughout the Center for Urban Horticulture.

What do phormium and yellow-eyed penguins have in common? Travel to New Zealand with UW Botanic Gardens to find out!

Busy gardeners appreciate the early spring flowers and minimal care required of evergreen perennials such as epimediums and hellebores. They don’t need dividing or staking or fertilizing, they just do their thing without much gardener intervention. Yet a little attention in late winter will improve the appearance and show off newly emerging flowers.
Roy Farrow, one of the UW Botanic Gardens horticulturists, attends to enormous swaths of epimedium and hellebore in the Washington Park Arboretum’s Witt Winter Garden. 

By John A. Wott, Director Emeritus. Recently I was given a copy of the Arboretum Bulletin, Volume VIII , no. 4, Winter 1945, by Lyn Sauter, who was the first librarian for the collection of books that became the Miller Library.

During our November potluck, Josh Furman demonstrated how to make all sorts of delicious things with squash, because, well, it’s that time of year. Here are his recipes, as promised:
Roasted Winter Squash Salad

2-3 winter squash sliced
1 onion sliced into wedges
1/2 tablespoon sumac and 1/2 tablespoon nigella seeds (optional)
2 tablespoons sliced almonds or other crushed nuts such as pistachios.