2019 May 14
Lilac Therapy Walk
Repeats every week every Thursday until Thu May 16 2019 .
9:00am to 11:00am
9:00am to 11:00am
Location: 
Map Table by the Ponds, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Every May, visitors flock to the Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain to breathe in the fragrant lilac collection and witness the array of color. This flower has a history of medicinal use and if you have ever spent time inhaling this sweet fragrance you may have noticed a sense of calm and relaxation.
May can be a time of unwinding as we transition into a new season under a warmer and brighter sun. Whether you've been visiting the lilac collection for years or have yet to experience them, this is an invitation to unplug, de-stress, and recharge on a guided lilac therapy walk....
Read more about Lilac Therapy Walk
2019 May 04
Landscape Plant Selection, Planting, and Establishment
1:00pm to 3:30pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Ensuring the long-term health of your landscape starts with healthy plants from the nursery, proper site selection and preparation, and sound planting and establishment. Andrew Gapinski will discuss professional standards and techniques, along with common issues and solutions for both balled-and-burlapped and containerized specimens. He will focus on landscape trees, shrubs, and perennials—ornamental annuals and vegetables will not be covered in this offering. Class will start indoors and then move outdoors to the Dana Greenhouse Nursery.
Cost: $30 members, $...
Read more about Landscape Plant Selection, Planting, and Establishment
2019 Apr 28
Census Challenge! Biodiversity Sampling
2:00pm to 4:00pm
Location: 
North Woods, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Arnold Arboretum Staff and Volunteers
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...
Read more about Census Challenge! Biodiversity Sampling
2019 Apr 23
Film Screening: Lobster War: The Fight Over the World's Richest Fishing Grounds
6:00pm to 8:00pm
Location: 
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge
Lobster War is an award-winning documentary film about a conflict between the United States and Canada over waters that both countries have claimed since the end of the Revolutionary War. The disputed 277 square miles of sea known as the Gray Zone were traditionally fished by U.S. lobstermen. But as the Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than nearly any other body of water on the planet, the area’s previously modest lobster population has surged. As a result, Canadians have begun to assert their sovereignty, warring with the Americans to claim the bounty.
Directed...
Read more about Film Screening: Lobster War: The Fight Over the World's Richest Fishing Grounds
2019 Apr 20
Tree Spotters Citizen Science Program: Basic Training
Repeats every week every Saturday until Sat Apr 27 2019 .
10:30am to 12:00pm
10:30am to 12:00pm
Location: 
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...
Read more about Tree Spotters Citizen Science Program: Basic Training
2019 Apr 17
An Introduction to Medicinal Plants
Repeats every week every Wednesday until Wed May 08 2019 . Also includes Sat May 11 2019.
6:30pm to 8:30pm
6:30pm to 8:30pm
6:30pm to 8:30pm
6:30pm to 8:30pm
6:30pm to 8:30pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Have you ever wanted to be able to separate medicinal plant facts from fiction? This introductory survey course, taught by two experts in the field of ethnobotany, will reveal essential connections between both the anthropological foundations and scientific principles underlying plant-derived drugs around the world. Knowledge will be built for the non-expert, atop four essential pillars of anthropology, botany, chemistry, and pharmacology. The class will be structured to include interactive classroom exercises, the making of simple herbal remedies, and lectures. Our learning experience...
Read more about An Introduction to Medicinal Plants
2019 Apr 17
Weld Hill: Research on View
1:00pm to 2:00pm
Location: 
Weld Hill, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
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.
Learn more about and RSVP for Weld Hill: Research on View.
Read more about Weld Hill: Research on View
2019 Apr 16
Finding Wild in the City
1:00pm to 3:00pm
Location: 
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.
...
Read more about Finding Wild in the City
2019 Apr 15
Botany Blast: Seasonal Shifts in Trees
6:30pm to 7:30pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
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.
...
Read more about Botany Blast: Seasonal Shifts in Trees
2019 Apr 14
Welcome Back, Redwing Blackbirds
2:00pm to 3:30pm
Location: 
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!
Learn more about and RSVP for Welcome Back Redwing Blackbirds.
Read more about Welcome Back, Redwing Blackbirds
2019 Apr 14
April Birding
8:00am to 9:30am
Location: 
Arborway Gate, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Join the Arnold Arboretum's Brendan Keegan for an easy walk looking for early spring birds. This April walk will focus on breeding behavior, the competitive reality of bird song, and a check on chickadee nesting tubes for signs of activity.

All skill levels, especially beginners, are encouraged to join. Make sure to bring binoculars; a few binoculars will be available to share.
...
Read more about April Birding
2019 Apr 13
Drawing Daffodils Workshop: Exploring the Botany Behind the Art
1:00pm to 3:00pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Have you ever dissected a flower? Do you know what a corona and a corolla are? Join botanical artists, Angell and Duncan as they lead you in creating pencil sketches of several varieties of daffodils. You will slice the flowers open to examine and draw their reproductive anatomy. The instructors will explain distinguishing features of the beautiful spring flowers and teach basic terminology to add to your understanding of the diverse botanical world.
Some pencils will be available, but bring your own if you have them. We will provide everything else, including microscopes....
Read more about Drawing Daffodils Workshop: Exploring the Botany Behind the Art
2019 Apr 13
Artist's Photography Walk: Transitions, Winter Into Spring
10:00am to 11:30am
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Join The Arboretum's current exhibiting photographer, Chris Morgan, for a walk in the Arnold Arboretum. He will discuss the best techniques for landscape photography. Make sure to bring your camera or phone!
Learn more about and RSVP for Artist's Photography Walk: Transitions, Winter Into Spring.
Read more about Artist's Photography Walk: Transitions, Winter Into Spring
2019 Apr 13
Basic Identification of Evergreens
9:30am to 11:30am
Location: 
Weld Hill Building, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
Evergreens can be conifers or broad-leafed deciduous plants…they aren’t all pine trees. Starting in the classroom, Laura Mele (Arnold Arboretum Horticulturist; MA Certified and ISA Certified Arborist) will introduce basic identifying characteristics of common evergreens and the lead a tour through the Arboretum’s Conifer Collection and Rhododendron Dell for...
Read more about Basic Identification of Evergreens
2019 Apr 13
Saturday Forest Bathing
Repeats every week every Saturday until Sat Apr 27 2019 except Sat Apr 20 2019.
9:00am to 11:00am
9:00am to 11:00am
Location: 
Bussey St. Gate, Arnold Arboretum, Boston
This slow-paced guided therapeutic experience promotes wellness through a series of gentle sensory-opening invitations that welcome us to notice more of our natural surroundings. By deepening our connection with the natural world and each other, we open ourselves up to the healing medicine of the forest. Forest Bathing is part of a global effort to tend to the stressful conditions of living in modern industrialized civilization.
Cost: $25 member, $35 nonmember
...
Read more about Saturday Forest Bathing
2019 Apr 06
Arboretum for Educators
9:00am to 11:30am
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Arboretum for Educators monthly explorations are a professional development opportunity for elementary and middle school teachers to introduce the Arboretum landscape as an outdoor classroom. Participants learn about specific hands-on life science topics that may be used or adapted by teachers for their own classrooms and outdoor spaces. Meet and network with other like-minded educators, and engage in life science learning.
April 6: What are Flowers? Form and Function Through Dissections
...
Read more about Arboretum for Educators
2019 Apr 04
Cultivating Wildness Where You Are
9:30am to 11:00am
Location: 
Bussey Street Gate, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
Redirect your commute to the Arnold Arboretum for an exploratory journey into what wildness is, what it could be, and how it might be recovered in our daily lives. No matter if you live in the city or farther afield, exposure to natural elements and observation of other-than-human creatures can refresh your mind and fuel your soul. Gavin Van Horn will lead this landscape amble, interjecting readings and thoughts for finding wildness within and beyond self. Dress according to the weather and plan to walk approximately one mile, on and off trail, up and down steep terrain.
...
Read more about Cultivating Wildness Where You Are
2019 Apr 03
Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Location: 
Hunnewell Building, Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, Boston
A wanderer and writer with a doctorate in religion, Gavin Van Horn inhabits a big city. And that city (Chicago) has offered him something to compliment and complicate the solitude of the woods or a remote mountainside: a window onto the attractiveness of cities to animals. What was once in his mind essentially a nature-free zone turns out to be a bustling environment where millions of wild things roam. He came to realize that our own paths are crisscrossed by the tracks and flyways of black-crowned night herons, Cooper’s hawks, brown bats, coyotes, opossums, white-tailed deer, and many...
Read more about Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds
2019 Feb 24
Build a Better Bird House
2:00pm to 4:00pm
Location: 
125 Arborway, Hunnewell Building, Boston
Learn how to build safe homes for native birds. This class covers best practices for general bird house design using the Arboretum's own nest boxes (for tree swallows, eastern bluebirds, black capped chickadees, and screech owls) as examples. You will learn tips for deterring predators and non-native competitors, as well as how to safely monitor young nestlings. Finally, you will build and take home your own "Chickadee Tube," a design suitable for many Boston yards. 
Fee: $28 member, $35 nonmember
...
Read more about Build a Better Bird House
2019 Feb 09
Winter Tree Identification
1:00pm to 4:00pm
Location: 
125 Arborway, Hunnewell Building, Boston
Without their leaves, trees can be challenging to identify in the winter. However, if you consider a tree’s branching structure and buds, you can often determine its species. Former Arboretum Horticulturist and now a high school teacher, Sue Pfeiffer will speak about the clues to look for and the keys available to help you definitively identify specific trees. Dress in layers for indoor and outdoor learning.
... Read more about Winter Tree Identification

Pages