Levine to lead weekly tours of arboretum

It’s been a long cold winter in Nebraska. To break away from cabin fever, UNL Gardens is sponsoring a series of informal spring walking tours in the Earl G. Maxwell Arboretum on East Campus.

Throughout the season, the arboretum goes through rapid changes. These tours, noon to 1 p.m. each Tuesday March 30 through May 11, will guide visitors to the current week’s highlights. The tours will be led by Emily Levine, special projects research horticulturist with the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture. They are free and open to the public.

Over the weeks, the tours will follow the progression of bloom from the earliest small bulbs and later blooming daffodils and tulips to herbaceous perennials to spring-flowering trees and shrubs like magnolias, amelanchiers, dogwoods, horse chestnuts, crab apples, viburnums, lilacs, and rhododendrons. Students can supplement their formal horticultural education, faculty and staff can gain more knowledge about their campuses’ gardens, homeowners can get ideas for their own yards, and everyone can appreciate the beauty and science of the plants in the arboretum.

Trees in the Maxwell Arboretum bloom into life in this file photo. Weekly tours of the East Campus arboretum begin March 30. Photo by Brett Hampton/IANR News Service.

Originally dedicated in 1969, the Earl G. Maxwell Arboretum later became one of the first sites of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum. Growing out of experimental plantings by State Extension Forester Earl G. Maxwell in the 1940s, the arboretum is the university’s premier green space, showcasing collections of individual tree and shrub species, herbaceous gardens, native prairie, a vine arbor and much more.

Participants should meet at the Karl Loerch Gazebo located one block east of the UNL Dairy Store just off Holdrege Street. Some metered parking is available on the East Campus Loop south of the arboretum. In the event of rain, that week’s tour will be canceled. If there is interest, additional tours may be planned.

Information about the Maxwell Arboretum is available at http://unlgardens.unl.edu. For more information contact Levine at elevine2@unl.edu or 472-6274.