Will Summer ever arrive?
...or at least temperatures in the 70's??
We hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend, and are ready to embrace slightly warmer temperatures if you live in the Hudson Valley or any of the surrounding areas in NY. It’s been a wet, damp, moist, saturated, drenched, and sometimes thoroughly soaked spring. I keep hearing from everyone how much they don’t like it, but then quickly acknowledge that the plants must be loving it!
Save the Dates
This coming weekend Hortus will have two amazing teachers here to share their knowledge!
May 31st - Magnolia workshop with Wendy Hollender & Draw Botanical.
This special class will spend all day at the arboretum drawing and learning from Wendy, a worldwide-acclaimed botanical artist. She just happens to be our neighbor and comes to Hortus to sketch certain plants for her series on plant families. Come join her and learn about techniques for capturing flowers just so.
You can visit here for more details.
June 1st - Tree ID class with Levi O’Brien - Levi is back, and he will explore the different characteristics of native and naturalized trees to help you build confidence in your own tree identification practices. Levi’s classes are always fun, informative and mind-blowing with the amount of information he has on trees, whether native, naturalized or introduced.
June 1st - Woodlore and Cultural History Class - Led by Levi O'Brien - Join Levi in exploring the vast history of tree use and cultural importance. Learn how trees have shaped the history of humanity.
More cool classes…
June 7th - Eco-Printing with Bonnee Pecquex - Eco-printing is an artistic technique that involves using plant materials to create unique and intricate patterns on fabric. Bring your own material or use some from the arboretum to make your own scarf.
For more information and to sign up, click here.
June 8th - Join us for our monthly guided walking tour highlighting some of our favorite edible and ornamental plants. Reserve here.
June 15th - The Annual Plant Sale Redux - This year, we have invited Hazelmor Nursery, and Treadlight Nursery to sell plants alongside us.
Members to the arboretum can ask for a preorder link for the Hortus plant list. Ordering and payment will happen online. Your plants can then be picked up on June 15th. We will also be selling plants not on the plant list that day, so come check it out!
If you are a paying Substack supporter, I will also send you an early bird ordering link—just request it!
Sunday, June 22 - Ulster County Open Days co-sponsored with The Garden Conservancy. Explore these private gardens, open to the public exclusively today! click here for more information.
June 28th - The annual Art in the Garden event - Lori Merhige is the featured artist this year! There will also be several pop-up artists doing their thing on the day. More on that in the next newsletter!
Did you know the arboretum gives private group tours or that you can rent out the gardens for an event? Contact us for more details.
At Hortus we are transitioning from using tools and equipment that require fossil fuels to using battery-powered ones. We received a grant from The Rondout Valley Growers Association (RGVA- of which we are members of) to purchase TWO battery-powered mowers.
Do you consider yourself a patient gardener? Are you able to wait it out for a decade or even longer to see a plant finally flower?? We saw this beauty in berry at the wonderful Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plains, MA, over fifteen years ago. With bright blue metallic berries, Scott and I couldn’t resist! Symplocos paniculata also known as Sapphire berry is native to Eastern Asia and as you can surmise a slow-growing shrub. At Hortus, the first one we put in has finally flowered and we will be preparing another site nearby to ensure cross-pollination to get the gorgeous fall berries (no this is not an edible plant!)
Here’s another sensational tree that, if you read about it in the books, says that from planting time, it takes 10 years for it to flower! I am happy (or not so happy) to confirm that is the case, and last year, on its tenth year in the Chinese gardens, it did bloom! Luckily, we had it flower for a second year in a row, and this time, it looks like there are viable fruits!
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