Accredited Arboretum News

According to Dr. Dave Kendal from the University of Tasmania, in the next 50 years, 20-50% of current plant species in botanic gardens and urban landscapes will likely confront temperatures those species have never experienced before.

Last month, as the State closed on one of its hottest and driest years on record, a giant White Oak (Quercus alba), that had stood for over 150 years on the famous Oak Lawn at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, simply collapsed, leaving a gaping hole in the City's most iconic landscape.

Little red buds poke through the bark of burnt eucalyptus trees in the Blue Mountains. It's been just over a month since the Gospers Mountain fire tore through, but regeneration has begun.

The early signs of recovery are positive, but ecologists are preparing for "a lot of loss" as they begin the challenges of conserving, managing and studying bushfire affected ecosystems.

To Jimmy Turner, the living botanical treasures of Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens and Centennial Parklands are more valuable than the Mona Lisa and black rhinos, and more important to the world's future.

HONOLULU – The Department of Parks and Recreation is proud to announce that Honolulu

Botanical Gardens (HBG) have been awarded a Level III Accreditation by the ArbNet

Arboretum Accreditation Program for achieving standards of professionalism important for

arboreta and botanical gardens around the world. The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program

is the only global initiative to officially recognize arboreta at various levels of development,

capacity, and professionalism.

The Blue Mountains Botanic Garden is one of the properties ravaged by the fire, with staff on Monday morning confirming that damage to parts of the garden is “significant.”

The gardens are closed due to the fires and staff say they are still assessing the full extent of the damage.

“Thankfully, most of the Garden’s Living Collection along with the main buildings are safe at the moment,” staff said.

The garden will remain closed for at least another week, according to staff.

The Albright-Knox Art Gallery is not the only cultural institution holding a fall groundbreaking.

In the case of the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens, though, it's coming a year later.

The first large-scale expansion of the Botanical Gardens in more than a century is proceeding – following numerous meetings over the past several months, including with the McKinley Parkway Homeowners Association, Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, the Niagara Frontier Orchid Society and at Buffalo and Lackawanna community forums.

Even on a frigid morning, when the last scarlet leaves clung to an oak tree and fallen gingko leaves blurred the pathways, a woman sat cross-legged on a stone bench in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, wrapped and rapt. I have no idea who she was or how long she’d been sitting there, but in the days since I spotted her, she has lingered in my mind as an image of serenity stolen from the screeching tumult of urban life.

We pass a Palo María tree that’s been illegally cut and hauled away (they fetch close to US $10,000) and on the drive in to the Gardens this morning Gerlowski pointed out the nascent signs of development along the road – a barbed wire fence here, a cement slab there, earth that has been carved out of the ridge of the river’s canyon for the entrance to a future house or hotel. There are legal and illegal construction projects galore.

A Cultural Landscape Foundation report lists the Holden Arboretum in Kirtland among 10 U.S. landscapes threatened by climate change.

The Foundation recently released Landslide, its annual report on the topic. Sites range from the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to Death Valley Scotty Historic District.

ArbNet is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 BGCI/ArbNet Partnership Programme! This funding opportunity supports the development of international collaborations between gardens and arboreta for the purpose of exchanging skills, resources and expertise to advance tree conservation. We are excited to see what these partnerships will accomplish over the next year!

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