Come by the Arnold Arboretum for our series of Second Sundays community events, celebrating Peters Hill and the neighborhoods surrounding it. Enjoy family activities, play lawn games, talk to a horticulturist or a scientist, sample local apples, take a tour, and more!
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Families need nature at all times of the year! Meet inside the main gate at the Visitor Center. We’ll look at buds and blooms and learn how bees find flowers. Go on a StoryWalk®, get a bee tattoo, and look at flowers under magnifiers. Free and open to all, most suitable for children ages four through ten.
Join us for a walk through the Arboretum! Tour seasonal plant highlights and learn about Arboretum history from a trained docent. Tour is 90 minutes long.
Tour times are at 10:30am or 1:00pm, depending on availability.
Horticulturists use grafting to fuse together different plants, taking positive traits from each to create maximum disease resistance, drought tolerance, and more. Join Greenhouse Horticultural Technologist Chris Copeland on a walk around the landscape to find graft unions-- both those created by Arboretum staff and those that have occurred naturally. Then head inside to see Chris and his grafting tools in action as he dices and splices plants together using a variety of grafting techniques.
Young trees need careful pruning in their first few years of life to avoid dropping limbs later on. Arborists Ben Kirby and AJ Tataronis will show you how to prevent poor branch unions, avoid competing leads, and correct other defects common in nursery-grown trees. We will start indoors at Weld Hill Lecture Hall and then head outside to see some pruning in action.
Make a difference as an Arnold Arboretum Field Study Guide! Training for the spring season of school programs at the Arboretum begins March 29. We are looking for outgoing and mature adults who can commit to two years of volunteering. You do not need to know about plants, but experience working with children is preferred. If you are interested, please complete an application by March 11 for an interview.
Take a guided tour of the Arnold Arboretum's state-of-the-art Weld Hill Research and Administration Building. Learn about some of the cutting-edge plant research and explore the “green” building design.
Bussey Street Gate, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Docent Robbie Apfel leads this winter walk in an exploration of the Arboretum's conifer collection. Beginning from the Bussey Street Gate, you will be introduced to the Arboretum's grand gymnosperms, learn the botany of conifers, and hear about Hemlock Hill's evolving ecosystem. This tour will also introduce you to native and non-native conifers in the winter landscape.
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
The Arnold Arboretum is full of spectacular specimens from around the world that any visitor will appreciate. However, what they observe is only half the story. How a tree uptakes water and nutrients, stays grounded in place, stores energy, and sometimes even propagates itself, is all thanks to its roots. Join horticulturists Andrew Gapinski and Conor Guidarelli as they unearth these questions and more during an exclusive look into the extraordinary world of roots.