Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Join Manager of Plant Production, Tiffany Enzenbacher, for an evening of exploration into the oldest dwarfed plant collection in the United States. As one of the caretakers of the Arboretum's bonsai collection, Tiffany will highlight many of the procedures used by staff to maintain the health of these captivating specimens.
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...
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.
Get Your Hands Dirty will allow you to stick your hands into the soil and really get to know it. You will have a chance to use digital probes, collect data, and then share that data with other scientists for a day.
One adult may bring a maximum of three children; suitable for children ages five and up.
Peters Hill Gate, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Join our docent for a tour of the other end of the Arnold Arboretum, the southern end. Peters Hill became part of the Arboretum in 1894 and continues to charm with its special character, collections, and history. In summer, the amazing view from the summit takes in the Boston skyline and a rich and textured landscape spreading out below you. Learn the history of the land, along with information on the woody plants located here.
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
The Leventritt Shrub and Vine Garden contains a multitude of cultivated plants with culturally significant medicinal properties. However, on a casual stroll along Linden Path to the Leventritt, you will pass dozens of other plants that are often looked upon as simple weeds. Many of these plants have rich ethnobotanical histories of their own that tie us closer to our environment. Your guides will explain how these "weedy" plants came to colonize this area while touching on cultural contexts and botanical identification of these wild species—as well as the cultivated medicinal species in...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
In 1911, Charles Sprague Sargent, the founding director of the Arnold Arboretum, began writing a serialized pamphlet titled the Bulletin of Popular Information, in which he described flowering and fruiting displays at the Arboretum. Because Sargent often focused on plants newly arrived from expeditions to Asia and elsewhere, many of his descriptions provided the first horticultural comparisons between species that had never been grown in the same garden.
On this tour, Jonathan Damery will revisit plants mentioned throughout Charles Sprague Sargent's sixteen years with...
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Enjoy a free guided tour of the Arnold Arboretum landscape with a knowledgeable guide. Tours are appropriate for adults and last approximately 90 minutes. Landscape highlights, seasonal interest, history, and more.
Bradley Rosaceous Collection, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
The rose family (Rosaceae) contains over 3,000 species of trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. Roses, spireas, mountain ash, and many more are at peak bloom in June.
You will be surprised by the beauty, breadth, and depth of the Bradley Rosaceous Collection (BRC), and the Arboretum's role in discovering and disseminating understanding of this large family of plants.
Bonsai and Penjing Pavillion, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Did you know that almost all of the plants in the Arboretum begin their lives in the Dana Greenhouses? Get a behind-the-scenes look of the greenhouse growing process, from seed to sprout to seedling to tree.
Celebrate plant diversity, natural history, and the work of public gardens by spotlighting plants and their families. Join us for tours, family activities and festivities in the ginkgo collection on Peters Hill. Most people can identify a ginkgo leaf – but what do you really know about the tree itself? Come learn more about this “living fossil” and explore a collection that reflects the greatest known genetic diversity of wild-collected ginkgos in North America.
This is a free, drop-in activity. The event will be taking place in the ginkgo collection on Peters Hill. Street...
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.
Dissection Dramatics will give you ample opportunity to fiddle with microscopes, hand lenses and digital scopes. Discover the secrets contained in a flower as you pull it apart piece by piece. Then test your puzzle making abilities as you attempt to put it back together.
One adult may bring a maximum of three children; suitable for children ages...
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 microscopes.
Free and open to all, most suitable for children ages four through ten.
Lilac Sunday has been celebrated at the Arnold Arboretum since 1908. The lilac collection at the Arnold Arboretum is among the premier collections of these plants in North America and is singled out each year for a daylong celebration on May 12.
Tours of the lilacs and family activities are available from 10:00am to 3:00pm on Sunday, May 12. Pack a picnic! Picnicking is permitted on this day only, but food must be brought in to the Arboretum. There will only be lemonade, slush, and ice cream available on site during event hours. The landscape is open from dawn until dusk...
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.
Census Challenge will test your categorizing and observational skills. Join us in the North Woods and help us catalog the diversity of living organisms found in a small area. You will be surprised!
One adult may bring a maximum of three children; suitable for children ages five and up. This...
Hunnewell Building Lecture Hall or Weld Hill Lecture Hall, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
With nearly 4,000 different kinds of plants represented in the Arboretum's living collections, every day presents rich opportunities to see something new. If you enjoy learning about plants and their unique characteristics, you can contribute to science as a participant in our Tree Spotters program. This citizen science project opens a window into the Arboretum's phenology: the timing of natural events, such as the leafing out and flowering of trees in the spring and changing foliage colors in the fall. Your observations will assist Arboretum scientists in their studies of the effects of...
Take a guided tour of the state-of-the-art Weld Hill Research and Administration Building! You will learn about some of the cutting edge plant research taking place there, and explore the “green” building design.
Linden Path & North Woods, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Arnold Arboretum Staff and Volunteers
Visit the Arnold Arboretum and venture through the North Woods. Be on the lookout for the wild inhabitants. Use your explorer senses to spot things that normally go unseen. Develop your observation skills and be prepared to make discoveries that might be surprising!
One adult may bring a maximum of three children; suitable for children ages five and up. This is a drop-in activity. The hike will begin at the start of Linden Path.
There are challenges to being a tree in a temperate climate, mainly the changing of seasons. But trees are equipped to shift with these environmental changes. Kristel Schoonderwoerd, PhD Candidate for Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, and Fellow of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, will explain how trees slow down for winter and subsequently reverse “gears” for springtime and the onset of the growing season.
Arborway Gate, Meadow Road, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Families need nature all year! Celebrate the return of migratory redwing blackbirds to the meadow of the Arnold Arboretum. Search for birds with binoculars, go on a StoryWalk® about wild birds, identify bird calls, dress up as a redwing blackbird, and get a redwing blackbird tattoo!
Join in for a wake-up spring walk through the Arnold Arboretum's fabulous collections! With your guide, you will explore the less-traveled paths of the Arboretum on a brisk walk. You will get a chance to catch your breath and pause to hear about interesting plants along the way.