Garden tours

Native wildflowers and grasses blossom in Wisconsin Native Plant Garden

The Arboretum offers free informational tours in Longenecker Horticultural Gardens (LHG) and also the Wisconsin Native Plant Garden (WNPG). Tours occur on selected dates from April through October, Wednesday nights from 7 p.m. to dusk, or Saturday afternoons from one to three p.m. Tours are available to the general public and start in the Arboretum Customer Center. They are meant for adults.

Using more than 2,500 kinds of plants displayed, Longenecker Horticultural Gardens feature an worldwide recognized assortment of trees, shrubs, and vines. It is an origin for study regarding landscape plants by educators, the general public, and also the nursery trade. The gardens hold major displays of lilacs, flowering crabapples, viburnums, conifers, and lots of other plant groups.

Some-acre Wisconsin Native Plant Garden surrounds the Customer Center with hundreds of species indigenous to Wisconsin. Your garden can serve as introducing environmental restoration and also the restored and managed plant communities within the Arboretum. Additionally, it helps guide you to include native plants into home landscapes.

Tours are brought by Arboretum garden staff—including Susan Carpenter, the WNPG gardener, David Stevens, the LHG curator, Stephen Nystrand, LHG horticulturist—and other local experts. Tours are cancelled for tornados.

2017 Garden Tours

Saturday, April 22, 1–3 p.m. Native Plant Garden Tour: Early Indications of Spring

As trees start to leaf out, Dutchman’s breeches, twin-leaf, and rue-anemones may be blooming within the woodland gardens, and pasqueflower and prairie-smoke within the prairie gardens. Susan Carpenter may lead this tour.

Saturday, April 29, 1–3 p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Magnolias

Magnolia tree in blossom, Longenecker Horticultural Gardens

See, smell, and find out about the gardens’ extensive magnolia collection, along with other spring flowering plants experienced on the way, with Michael Jesiolowski, Chicago Botanic Garden senior horticulturist.

Saturday, May 6, 1–3 p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Lilacs and Crabapples

David Stevens may lead this tour through two signature collections, concentrating on a brief history, beauty, and landscape worth of crabapples and lilacs, which are the favorite ornamental woodsy plants within the Midwest.

Saturday, June 10, 1–3p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Permaculture

Join Kate Heiber-Cobb, founding father of the Madison Area Permaculture Guild, and Marian Farrior, Arboretum outreach specialist, because they explore urban permaculture design and highlight permaculture functions of woodsy plants within the collection.

Wednesday, June 14, 7 p.m. Native Plant Garden Tour: Woodland, Savanna, and Prairie Gardens

Celebrate late spring by going to our woodland, savanna, and prairie gardens. This tour, brought by Susan Carpenter, provides an introduction to the Wisconsin Native Plant Garden.

Saturday, Next Month, 1–3 p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Woodsy Plants of China.

Join Stephen Nystrand on the tour highlighting different and fascinating plants of Chinese origin inside the collection. Discover the history, cultural significance, economic importance, and landscape utilization of ginkgo, beginning redwood, maples, flowering quinces, plus much more.

Wednesday, June 21, 7 p.m. Native Plant Garden Tour: What’s Blooming?

Join Susan Carpenter to locate, compare, and discover about flowers on native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants.

Saturday, This summer 8, 1–3 p.m. Garden Tour: Medicinal Plants

Herbalist Lola Stonehill and Arboretum outreach specialist Marian Farrior will explore the medicinal and botanical richness of herbaceous and woodsy plants within the gardens, searching at both historic and contemporary uses.

Saturday, This summer 15, 1–3 p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Street Trees

Stephen Nystrand will give you with the extensive assortment of shade trees and discuss techniques for growing healthy trees in urban/suburban conditions.

Wednesday, This summer 19, 7 p.m. Garden Tour: Plants for Pollinators

Find out about summer time-blooming native and decorative species in Arboretum gardens. Susan Carpenter will reveal plants and gardening practices that support essential pollinators in urban/suburban landscapes.

Wednesday, August 9, 7 p.m. Native Plant Garden Tour: Native Grasses

Indian grass

Susan Carpenter will concentrate on color, size, featuring of native Wisconsin grasses, from small mustache grass to big bluestem.

Saturday, September 9, 1–3 p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Edible Landscaping

Join Judy Kingsbury and Marian Farrior, Arboretum outreach specialists, because they explore the collection’s edible plants and highlight a few of their favorite timber.

Saturday, September 23, 1–3 p.m. Native Plant Garden Tour: Fall within the Native Plant Garden

Color, fruits, seeds, late blooming plants, late-season insects—we will discover these and much more within the diverse native plant gardens. Susan Carpenter may lead this tour.

Saturday, October 7, 1–3 p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Fall Favorites

Benefit from the colorful show of timber before winter dormancy. Michael Jesiolowski, senior horticulturist at Chicago Botanic Garden, will reveal the very best fall foliage and fruit displays from Acer to Zelkova.

Saturday, October 14, 1–3 p.m. Longenecker Horticultural Gardens Tour: Conifers

David Stevens will explore the pinetum, the biggest and many diverse conifer collection within the condition. Found on a glacial drumlin, the gathering varies from pines, brighten, and firs, to Japanese umbrella trees.

Resourse: https://arboretum.wisc.edu/learn/tours/garden-tours/