If you were to sneak a peek into Hoyt Arboretum’s maintenance yard, the first things you’d notice might be the practical signs of a working natural area: tightly packed work trucks, shelving stacked floor-to-ceiling with shovels, rakes, pruners, and handsaws, bins of organized work gloves, and everything necessary for everyday stewardship. But—past the tools and … Read more
Every Tuesday is a lively one at Hoyt Arboretum—boots clomping and the comforting chatter of people gathering for our weekly stewardship crew. But, the week before Thanksgiving, Tuesday Crew felt special. When I arrived that morning and saw just how many people were packed into the classroom listening to Martin share the plan for the … Read more
Yesterday, the Hoyt Arboretum team welcomed some friends from the Portland Fruit Tree Project (PFTP) for a special fall harvest: collecting ginkgo fruits from one of Hoyt’s most remarkable trees. Together, the team gathered 77 pounds of fruit that will be processed and donated to the Asian Food Pantry at the Center for Positive Aging. … Read more
This June we are wishing a very happy Pride Month to our Ginkgo biloba ‘Autumn Gold’! This tree came to us as a male tree, but has begun to produce female “fruits” [1]. This is a perfectly natural phenomenon that occurs across several species of plants. Plants reproduce in a variety of ways, and can … Read more
Did you know that there are over 780 species of hollies (genus Ilex) distributed all over the world including parts of North America? There are no native Ilex in the Pacific Northwest, but after its introduction to the region as an ornamental in the late 1800’s, English holly (Ilex aquifolium) became very popular in gardens … Read more