SFA MAST ARBORETUM UPDATE 4 – October 22, 1998
| NOVEMBER 12,1998 - 4:00 PM : CEREMONIES FOR THE DEDICATION OF THE SFA MAST ARBORETUM WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE NEW AZALEA GARDEN ON UNIVERSITY DRIVE. YOU ARE INVITED TO JOIN IN THIS SPECIAL EVENT AND KICKOFF OF THE AZALEA GARDEN CAMPAIGN! |
PRESS RELEASE:
| NOVEMBER 12, 1998 DEDICATION DAY |
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| NOVEMBER 13 AND 14, 1998 - FRIDAY AND SATURDAY ALL DAY - WORK PARTY FOR ANY VOLUNTEERS WHO WANT TO HELP IN THE MASS PLANTING OF AZALEAS, CAMELLIAS AND MORE! |
The day after the dedication, Barbara Stump and crew will be leading the charge for this two-day work party (468-1832), with help from Dawn Parish (468-4404) and J.C. Andersen. At this mailout, the plants are in place, three of the 16 garden beds (98,000 square feet of bed space!) are ready for planting and sand and mulch are moving in the right direction. We need to be sure our 2500 plants are tagged, and ready in or near their planting sites in the SFA Azalea Garden. Anyone wanting to pitch in, meet at the headhouse behind the Agriculture building and put in a few hours - we need the help! If the cold weather doesn’t hurt them between now and November 12th, we may even have a few azaleas blooming then. Most of what we are planting is one-gallon material, which makes planting easy. However, the big excitement here is a camellia donation from one of our boosters, Mr. Ray Bond, more azaleas coming in via Greenleaf Nursery, and a class donation of large-sized Japanese maples by our good friends at Tawakoni Nursery. Be warned, however; if it looks as if we have the whole thing under control, you're probably wrong - but such is the adventure of all gardening. Depending on the vagaries of weather and coordinating trucks and plants and people is a challenge few should even entertain. The goal is simple: four acres planted in November and December. The sooner we get these planted the sooner the garden will take shape and the sooner we make root systems to hold the place together.
| Invite your friends, bring the kids and shovels or trowels, and have fun really making your mark in the garden. There’s lots to plant, but this won’t be strenuous. The plants will be in place and the main job will be moving them from their pots, scoring the root ball, planting them correctly and mulching. This is a great opportunity to see the garden at its’ very beginning, and to begin to see how the trails and gardens are being laid out. You can sign our "Builders’ Book" and give us input about where benches should be placed in the future. Amaze your friends as they drive by on University Drive. The big red and white tent will still be up, and there will be chairs for resting. We’ll have BBQ for sale, "I helped build the SFA Azalea Garden" T-shirts and mugs, and music, if we can talk Greg Grant into playing his special flute. We are open to other offers of music or assistance. Call Barb at 468-1832 if you want to volunteer for specific duties. Photographers are especially welcome. |
| NOVEMBER 15, 1998 - SUNDAY – 2 PM: PLANTING OF A SPECIAL JAPANESE MAPLE IN THE SFA AZALEA GARDEN. Mr. Daiji Goto, President of Nissho Gakuen Educational Corporation, with offices in Miyazaki and Kagoshima, Japan, will plant the first Japanese maple in the garden. This large specimen tree is being donated by Towakani Nursery. Mr. Goto’s corporation promotes Japanese-American peace and understanding through development of sister city and sister university cooperation. A reception will follow in the new Arboretum Children’s Pavilion. Come help us welcome this friend of Nacogdoches and SFA. |
| THIS YEAR'S FABULOUS FALL FESTIVAL REALLY WAS FABULOUS! (October 3, 1998). It was a beautiful day, the crowds were not too hectic, everything seemed under control, and yet, we cleared $6200 (about $2000 more than last fall's sale!). This is a much-needed shot in the arm for continuing development. Thanks to all of you for supporting this garden development! Dawn particularly appreciated all the volunteers who helped with the set-up and running of the day-long event. The Master Gardeners made all the difference in the world and there were plant-savvy people everywhere. Thanks especially to TreeSearch Farms and Doremus Nursery for their generous donation of plants for the sale. Thanks go out to to Gerald Hebert who brought in his hot dogs - ice cream - and drinks van on such short notice. |
| THE LES REEVES LECTURE SERIES - UPCOMING TALKS: 7 PM and every 3rd THURSDAY of each month - Room 110, Agriculture Building, Wilson Drive; great talks, refreshments and always some rare/unusual/exciting plant give-aways. |
November 19, 1998: Scott Reeves, Treesearch Farms, "What's Hot at the Nursery"
December 17, 1998: Greg Grant, "SFA, People and Their Plants"
More topics and speakers to be announced soon. The talks have been very well attended (75 to 100) and are a great opportunity to see friends and volunteers who enjoy and support a growing arboretum. The plant give-away is a kick and brings each meeting to a fun ending. Bring a friend.
| NURSERYMEN ARE VERY GENEROUS WITH DONATIONS TO THE SFA AZALEA GARDEN. See the attached Azalea Garden Newsletter for the long list of very generous contributions from nurseries as far away as Mississippi. We have also bought some plant material from South Carolina, and traded for some of Bill Caldwell’s Japanese maples. | |
| THANKS TO VOLUNTEERS AND THE HARDY FERN FOUNDATION, THE FERN COLLECTION CONTINUES TO GROW. Roger and Shirley Hughes have committed themselves to growing a selection of evergreen and deciduous ferns to be planted next spring in the SFA Azalea Garden. Thanks for this long-term support. These ferns will love the creek bank along the north end of the garden and will help stabilize it. Where possible, the big ferns will intermingle with the azaleas as backdrop plants. |
The Hardy Fern Foundation sent 47 new ferns of the following species for evaluation in our region.
Dryopteris lepidopoda
Dryopteris "lacera type"
Dryopteris stewartii
Polystichum neolobatum
Blechnum penna-marina
Polypodium interjectum
Crytomium falcatum 'Rochfordianum'
Dryopteris celsa
Dryopteris crispifia
Dryopteris affinis 'Azorica'
Dryopteris marginalis
Dryopteris blanfordii
Dawn and Roger planted them in the Shade Garden. Roger creates an annual report on how the plants perform, a report sent back to the foundation.
| THE DAWN COMETH: THE REBIRTH OF PHASE 1 – Greg Grant |
Due to the popularity of perennials and color plants, Phase I is going through a dramatic rejuvenation. The assorted "floating island" beds, both formal and informal, have been removed. The collection of small trees will also be removed. In their place will be a long vista of turf flanked by two spectacular 15 foot wide perennial borders. This will give the SFA Arboretum the largest perennial border display in the state, possibly even the entire South. This will also give the Arboretum and it's admirers a much needed starting place. Both the visual and physical aspects of the borders will help channel visitors down through the daylily and herb gardens and then into the shade garden. "Delta" Dawn Parish, who deserves credit for the popular Jekyll Border in
the same area will be designing the new perennial borders (move over Edith!). Plans are in order to have a unique set of color theme borders. Stay tuned for a masterpiece in the works.
As part of their special problems classes (and both ARE special problems!) Jody "Dean" Franks helped with the border layout, and "I want to be like Mike" Frith is helping with physical destruction and construction. In addition the dedicated (and forced) Annuals and Perennials class is doing the dirty (but necessary) work. Thanks to all. Should amount to the classiest and showiest part of the arboretum.
Change is good, right?
| FIREWOOD UPDATE. The mountain of firewood from clearing the Azalea Garden forest
helped light up the night Friday, October 16, for the SFA Homecoming Bonfire. Very
impressive sight, and, whew, was that a hot fire! |
| CHERYL’S VIEW FROM THE CHILDREN'S GARDEN – Garden Progress. The Children's Garden continues to take shape as hardscape and plants are installed. Special thanks to Mark Norman for all his hard work finishing the rock walls and Bart Brechter for the boardwalk and garden work. Dawn Parish led Hort students in a major planting attack in mid-October in our effort to hold garden beds together for the winter. |
Funding Success. Special thanks to Dr. Dale Perritt, Dr. David Kulhavy, and Dr. David Creech for their assistance in obtaining a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The grant will provide funding to develop a butterfly gardening program to train pre- and in-service teachers in the use of a butterfly garden to teach the essential elements designated by the TEKS. Over 120 pre-service teachers had an introductory class in the Children's Garden and the Arboretum in October. Several hundred children are expected to participate in introductory butterfly gardening classes this semester. The pavilion is becoming a popular place for parties, including a Keep Texas Beautiful luncheon and the Agriculture Alumni Fish Fry. What's next on our wish list? Maybe a real road down to the vegetable garden? How about a water garden and special fountain! Spring promises to be an explosion of color and fun at this special spot in the Arboretum!
| WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT – Wayne Weatherford is making the Arboretum’s
website a real joy to behold. The fall will see major additions to the site –
expansion of the plant features with Greg promising to catch up on his plant of the month
picks. There will be new additions to the Children’s Garden and Azalea Garden
information and more graphics. Big improvements are planned for the Three R’s portion
of our website. The class in public garden management is also contributing chapters to a
hypertext book now in construction - a "Public Gardens Management" handbook -
that will help other arboreta and botanic gardens get through some of their early growing
pains. | |
| DAWN’S DIRT – Volunteering. I’d like to thank all of the volunteers for your support during the Fabulous Fall Festival as well as our other volunteer days. You make things so much easier and so much more fun for us around here. Way to go! We would like to improve our volunteer organization by providing fun ways to get involved and learn, and to keep you updated with things going on in our garden as well as with all of our friends. If you have any suggestions or thoughts please let me know, especially if there is something you would really like to learn. |
Endangered Species Thesis Work. We have just completed collection of our Hibiscus dasycalyx plants growing at Mill Creek Gardens. This concludes the third growing season for our introduced" plants there. Plants are cut off at the crown, stems are counted, plants are dried, and finally each plant is weighed. This data will be compared to the same data collected for the past two years in order to see if our "applied horticulture" can benefit reintroduction of Hibiscus dasycalyx in the wild. I have a feeling our results will prove to be very interesting.
Arboretum Development Projects. You may have noticed quite a bit of construction going on around here. We are working very hard to make this garden into a real showcase. We have two new sun container yards at the Horticulture facility, something that will let us handle an ever-increasing plant inventory. Currently under renovation are the parking lot borders (Dr. Creech never winced even once at the removal of the crepes!), the perennial border (lots of new plants going in), and the entire area south of the Agriculture. building known as phase 1 and 2 is undergoing a major facelift. The Children's Garden has been given a boost of showy herbaceous plants for next year's color extravaganza and we are also slowly but surely expanding the beds and woody plant collection in Asian Valley. The Children's Garden is home to a special collection of Abelias. New plants are going in everywhere!
