Your January 2019 JC Raulston Arboretum e-Update

JC Raulston Arboretum e-Update

January 2019

Your Monthly News and Updates

Director's Note

By Mark Weathington, Director

Happy New Year! We’re just recovering from the whirlwind that was 2018 but already have a very full 2019 in the works. We're kicking off the year with a tour to New Zealand. If you think a group trip to somewhere exotic sounds like fun, keep your eye out for the announcement of next year's excursion. We're also excited to be offering another Gardening in the South symposium for brand new gardeners and new to North Carolina gardeners. This program isn't for experienced gardeners but make sure to let your new neighbors, friends colleagues, and other newcomers know about the February 2 program— advance registration is required. Best of all, it's free thanks to Leaf & Limb tree service's sponsorship. If you hate to miss it, we will be live streaming it as well.

From all of us here at the JC Raulston Arboretum, we sincerely hope your 2018 was as wonderful as ours and that you are looking forward to all 2019 has to offer.

So You Have a Family Membership, This Is One Reason Why

By Elizabeth Overcash, Children's Program Coordinator

Summer camps! If you are a parent of school age children, you probably did at least one search (or maybe a dozen, like me) over the holiday break looking at summer camp options. Maybe you even have that amazing spreadsheet already filled out organizing weeks, children, and camps. Well, here is one date and time that you need to make sure is in bold on your calendar — January 28 at 9:00 AM . That's when your family membership will give you access to early registration for the JCRA's Summer Garden Camps .

Family members enjoy discounted camp fees as well as two full weeks of registration before the public can register. That early registration will really come in handy for our most popular camps like Garden Chefs and Artists in the Garden . Last year, Garden Chefs only had two spots remaining on the first day of member registration and was full before registration opened for the public! Artists in the Garden only had two spots when it opened to the public. This year, our camp schedule changes and we only have one Nature Detectives camp. I’m anticipating that camp to also be full or almost full before it opens to public registration.

I share this with you so that you stop reading this e-Update right now and put a reminder or an alarm on January 28 so that you don't miss out on summer camps this summer. I want to be able to share our programs with your families and spend time with your children this summer showing them this amazing garden Can't wait to see who's coming to camp!

Summer Garden Camps

Winter Symposium

By Cheryl Kearns, JCRA Volunteer, and Christopher Todd Glenn, Programs and Education Coordinator

Are you getting ready for a new year of gardening? Then we invite you to join us for our annual Winter Symposium on Saturday, February 16, where the goal is to enlighten and inspire you. We'll even entertain you! The variety of speakers, all from different backgrounds and diverse gardens, will help you visualize how to plan and plant for diversity as you bring sustainable and natural elements into your own garden to enjoy as much in the winter as in the summer.

Our featured speakers and their topics are:

"Gardening in the South—Stop Whining and Grow a Pear"

Lisa Bartlett, Smith-Gilbert Gardens

"The Unsung Season: Gardens in Winter"

Karen Bussolini, Garden Photographer, Writer, and Speaker and Eco-friendly Garden Coach

"Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude"

Rodney Eason, Land & Garden Preserve

Registration is limited so register today to reserve your spot. We closed registration early for our last several winter symposia since we reached our capacity.

Membership Soared in 2018

By Kathryn Wall, Membership and Volunteer Coordinato r

The word is getting out about the great value of a JC Raulston Arboretum membership. More people than ever are joining the Arboretum. In 2018, we gained 415 new memberships! Thanks for helping spread the word about our programming, and yes, the plants ! We had a number of gift memberships given in December, so welcome to our newest members. Please feel free to contact me directly at kbwall@ncsu.edu if I can be of any assistance to you.

Gardening in the South

By Christopher Todd Glenn, Programs and Education Coordinator

New gardeners and those that recently moved the Triangle are invited to participate in Gardening in the South , a new symposium at the JC Raulston Arboretum that's designed just for them. Ted Bilderback, Ph.D.; Barbara Fair, Ph.D.; and William Fontento, Ph.D., will discuss pruning and long-term plant care, planting, and garden soils, respectively.

Gardening in the South

Sponsored by Leaf & Limb

Saturday, February 2, 2019 – 8:30 AM

This symposium is designed for new gardeners and gardeners new to the Triangle. While our limited auditorium space is limited to those of our target audience, we plan on recording this program and offering it on YouTube for everyone. We will also offer it as a live feed through Facebook the day of the event.

Make a Difference Each Month

By Alycia Thornton, Director of Development, and Lisa Meares, Development Program Associate

Two thousand and eighteen was a remarkable year at the JC Raulston Arboretum. We were able to continue our incredible student internship program for budding horticulturists, who will take the knowledge and hands-on experience they learned in the gardens with them into their future careers. Over the summer, the Arboretum hosted six different summer camps to inspire our youngest gardeners. Throughout the year, we had many phenomenal speakers visit to share their expertise, and in November, we hosted our most successful Moonlight in the Garden yet!

These are just a few highlights of all that we achieved at the JCRA last year. As we look forward to 2019, we know that it is only because of the incredible generosity of our donors that we were able to accomplish so much. With the dedicated support of our donors, we are excited to continue bringing these wonderful opportunities to the Arboretum, as well as broaden our horizons to include new events, new improvements, and new projects in the garden.

If you would like to be part of the community that helps make our continued progress possible, please consider creating a sustainable gift for the JCRA. Sustainable gifts, which allow you to donate on a monthly basis using your credit card, are an easy, convenient way for you to have a lasting impact on an institution that you care about. If you are interested in making a sustainable gift, please v isit http://go.ncsu.edu/j cra_gifts . Consider making a donation of $50.00, $25.00, or $10.00 that will positively impact the Arboretum. We can't wait to see what 2019 brings to the JCRA!

Make a Sustainable Gift

Hello 2019

By Douglas Ruhren, Gardens Manager

It’s that peculiar time of the year when we celebrate by putting a new calendar on the wall. The timing of this holiday makes no sense to this gardener. There are other dates that more logically mark a beginning of a new year. The winter solstice is certainly a time of new beginning as the descent to ever greater darkness ends and slowly, slowly the days begin to lengthen. Some cultures, Persian for one, designate the first day of spring as the beginning of a new year. This certainly makes sense to a gardener.

Regardless, this time of the new calendar has many gardeners assessing the calendar year just past and its impact on gardens. Many have designated it a trying year. It certainly has been a wet year, perhaps even a record-breaking wet year, but as JCRA staff and volunteers have planted close to five thousand plants in the past 12 months, the abundant rain tremendously eased the burden of watering newly planted plants. Oh, there have been losses due to excess wet, but not due to the amount of rain over the course of the year, but to those times when too much rain fell in too short a period of times, drowning plants.

I must keep in mind and feel compelled to mention that there were times this summer when the Arboretum had an excess of rain when Arboretum community members in this area went many weeks without any rain at all.

In 2018, there was one amazing weather event, one I've never experienced in my life before and guess might never experience again. It was the month-long period in late winter when it was cold but never cold enough to freeze the magnolias and never so warm as to shorten their display. They bloomed for a month uninterrupted. Now, in the past, it always seemed that the star and saucer magnolias caused frost. How could anyone feel otherwise: they start to bloom, a frost destroys the open flowers, absolutely guaranteed.

During this cold but frost-free month, the west side of the Arboretum was surreal, trees smothered in flowers and the ground totally carpeted in white and pink petals as if one passed through the wardrobe in Narnia into a pink and white winter wonderland.

In comparison, the weather was warm before this month of uninterrupted magnolia bloom and the pink form of typically white Yulan magnolia, Magnolia denudata 'Forrest’s Pink' lasted all of three days. It opened one day, was at its peak on the second day, and shattered on the third. Yet it was exquisite perfection while it lasted. Life is full of perfect moments to savor while they last, and in the garden, this is truer of winter than any other season. What is perfect one day can overnight be lost to a freeze.

There is floral perfection to enjoy in the Arboretum now. Many Mahonia are blooming, and many are showy and deliciously fragrant. Their floral display is a bonus on top of their year-round handsome evergreen foliage and striking architectural habit. The fragrance of loquat, Eriobotrya japonica , is a soft pleasant one, a bit like heliotrope, and it carries quite a distance.

I am not aware of any fragrance when it comes to the Fuji cherry, Prunus incisa , but the cultivar ‘Shikizaki’ (photograph above) has been blooming for at least six weeks now and will continue all winter. (Hello, have any plant breeder heard what I just said: all winter bloom?) This extended bloom period is not typical of other P. incisa cultivars. All the cultivars I am aware of are a very pallid pink, almost but not quite white. They are much smaller plants than most ornamental cherries. Perhaps they could be crossed with the winter flowering apricot, Prunus mume, to produce plants with fragrant flowers in a wider range of colors, and the smaller size of the Fuji cherry.

Only time will tell what the new calendar year will bring weather wise. Here’s hoping for moderation. But if moderation is not in the cards, I’ll go with wet over drought. What is also in order is great thanks to everyone in the JCRA community who help make the Arboretum what it is, and grand wishes for another glorious year.

Upcoming Events

Plantsmen's Tour

"Architectural Plants and Other Points of Interest in the Winter Garden"

Douglas Ruhren, Gardens Manager

Tuesday, January 8 – 1:00 PM

New Zealand: A Garden Paradise

Thursday, January 10 through Thursday, January 24 (Optional Extension at the End Available)

Registration Closed

Friends of the Arboretum Lecture

"Horticultural Tartan—A Walk Through Scotland's Gardens and Landscapes"

Amanda Wilkins, Juniper Level Botanic Garden

Thursday, January 10 – 7:30 PM

Garden Buds

Winter in the Garden

Friday, January 11 – 10:30 AM

Science Saturdays

The More Plants the Merrier!

Saturday, January 12 – 9:00 AM

North American Rock Garden Society (Piedmont Chapter) Lecture

Cohosted by the JC Raulston Arboretum and the Piedmont Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society

"Elizabeth Lawrence and Her Influence on Southern Gardening"

Doug Ruhren, Gardens Manager, and Edith Eddleman, JCRA Volunteer

Saturday, January 19 – 10:00 AM

Garden Soils Class

"If You Build It, They Will Come: Understanding and Improving Garden Soils"

Bryce Lane, Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Emeritus and Lecturer Emeritus, Department of Horticultural Science, NC State University

Saturday, January 26 – 8:30 AM

Propagation Workshop

Tim Alderton, Research Technician, and Christopher Todd Glenn, Programs and Education Coordinator

Saturday, January 26 – 9:00 AM

✽Denotes a children's program.

Many programs require advance registration. Please register early to reserve your spot.

Other Dates to Remember

Mulch Sale

Thursday, January 10

9:00 AM–3:00 PM

Gardening in the South

A Garden Symposium for New Gardeners and Gardeners New to the Area