Participate in the Arnold Arboretum’s 2021 Tournament of Trees! Get to know this year’s Sweet Sixteen contenders (March 3–9) and cast your votes in this fun bracket style tournament. Let the March Tree Madness games begin.
Shed the winter blues and head outdoors for a new season of exploration and nature noticing. EverydayNature Tasks, a calendar with daily activities to try outdoors, resumes its offerings on March 1. Do something natural every day! Free and open to all.
A plant that generates heat and attracts pollinators with its stink? Learn more about skunk cabbage in the Arnold Arboretum’s newest winter Wonder Spot, at the Arboretum meadow’s edge or online. Free and open to all.
Five decades of weekly walks in the Arnold Arboretum find expression in Ginny Zanger’s art. “Ambling” gives her time to sketch and paint. Using the unique possibilities of her favorite medium—watercolor—and printmaking, Zanger explores, with articulate interpretations, the Arboretum’s rich botanical display. In this online show, most of her work is on Yupo, a silky, polypropylene paper that enhances the flow of the watercolor.
Wonder Spots give Arboretum families an opportunity to explore the landscape through weekly investigations about the natural world. Learn about plants and animals in locations throughout the Arboretum, getting to know our grounds while discovering and observing living things in new ways. Each week, the featured Wonder Spot will be identified by a sign in the landscape. You can also find a Wonder Spot by using the map provided ...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Families need nature all year round! Meet inside the main gate at the Visitor Center. We will find a place to play together, making snow angels, snow humans, and more! Afterwards, families are invited to come inside the Lecture Hall to warm up with cookies and cocoa. Free and open to all, most suitable for children ages four through ten.
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 make paper chickadees and go on a StoryWalk to learn how a little bird can bring back the Sun! Free and open to all, most suitable for children ages four through ten.
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Winter is the barest of times in the Arboretum; however, there is much to see and much happening in the landscape. Join a docent for a walk on the bare side—notice shapes, textures, even the personalities of plants that are often missed when the land is heavy with green. You will see buds already forming and the dried seeds that are more visible when leaves are gone.
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 learn how Arboretum animals get ready for winter. Go on a StoryWalk, get a tattoo, and make a winter home for your favorite animal!
Free and open to all, this event is most suitable for children ages four through ten.
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 sneak about and see what our furry friends are doing as winter draws closer. Get a tattoo, play with puppets, and read a StoryWalk®.
Bradley Rosaceous Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Join the Arnold Arboretum for tours, family activities, and festivities inviting you to discover the diversity of the rose family (Rosaceae) which includes more than four thousand species. Many of the rose family taxa are of great importance to humans and the agricultural economy, and are vulnerable to extreme weather that is becoming the new norm. Come learn more about the many fruits of the rose family, a welcome buffet for our local wildlife.
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Families need nature at all times of the year! Join the Arboretum for a family hike where you will look for seeds that fly, seeds that float, seeds that get buried away, and seeds that travel through an animal’s stomach.
This event is free and open to all and most suitable for children ages four through ten.
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
The Caterpillar Lab, from Keene, New Hampshire, comes to the Arnold Arboretum for 5 days of astonishing exhibits. Explore the amazing world of caterpillars on a whole new level. There will be live caterpillars, cocoons, hatched eggs, shed skins, and much more. Visitors of all ages will be amazed!
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Families need nature at all times of the year! After meeting inside the main gate at the Visitor Center, you'll visit a nearby forest inside the Arboretum and learn what plants and animals live there. Visitors will get a chance to play with forest puppets, get a tattoo, and read a StoryWalk ®.
Free and open to all, most suitable for children ages four through ten.
Hunnewell Lawn, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
This is part of the new Science in Our Park Series. Come to the Arnold Arboretum and be a scientist! Get your hands onto scientific tools, use your observation skills, and share your findings with others.
Catch Some Rays! will let you harness the power of the sun. Help to create solar ovens, test the ability of various garden bed coverings to keep roots cool, and plant a sunflower seed that will follow the sun.
Please note: One adult may bring a maximum of three children; suitable for children ages five and up.
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Sarah Cross, the Arnold Arboretum's exhibiting artist of Between the Leaves, will hold a cyanotype printing workshop for families. Join Sarah to make beautiful blue prints of leaves and blooms found at the Arboretum, while you learn about this alternative printing technique. After making your own unique cyanotype photogram, you will be able to take it home. All materials will be provided.
Please note: This free drop-in activity is appropriate for ages 7 and up.
Arborist Station: Meet an Arboretum arborist and see them in action. Try on arborist protective gear and get up close and personal with the special tools used by arborists.
Watercolor Station: Become inspired by the beauty of the Arboretum and use...
Enjoy hundreds of fragrant lily flowers at the 72nd Annual International Lily Show. You will be amazed by the vibrant colors and diversity of scents on display. Discover the genus Lilium!
Enjoy hundreds of fragrant lily flowers at the 72nd Annual International Lily Show. You will be amazed by the vibrant colors and diversity of scents on display. Discover the genus Lilium!
Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
This June, the Arnold Arboretum brings a new production of Jane Austen's Regency period romance, Pride and Prejudice, to the Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden. This adaptation by playwright, Kate Hamill will be staged by Actors' Shakespeare Project (ASP), the award winning theater company who brought the site-specific Fog x Macbeth to the Arboretum last fall. Join us for Austen's seminal look at love, Hamill's comic and energetic adaptation, and Actors' Shakespeare Projects' wonderful cast of characters, as they...
