The North Carolina Arboretum () is an arboretum and

botanical garden A botanical garden or botanic gardenThe terms ''botanic'' and ''botanical'' and ''garden'' or ''gardens'' are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word ''botanic'' is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens, an ...

located within the Bent Creek Experimental Forest of the

Pisgah National Forest Pisgah National Forest is a National Forest in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. It is administered by the United States Forest Service, part of the United States Department of Agriculture. The Pisgah National Forest is complet ...

at 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way, southwest of Asheville, North Carolina near the

Blue Ridge Parkway The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, which is America's longest linear park, runs for through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenan ...

. It is open daily except for Christmas Day. There is no admission charge, but some parking fees do apply. Although the idea for the arboretum stretches back to landscape architect

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co ...

in 1898, who wished to create an arboretum at the nearby Biltmore Estate, today's arboretum was established by the General Assembly in 1986, as a facility of the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

. In 1989 the site was officially designated the North Carolina Arboretum. The arboretum is still under active development. It includes many hiking and bicycling trails, a bonsai collection, a holly garden, and a stream garden. Its tree collection includes a fine set of ''

Metasequoia ''Metasequoia'', or dawn redwoods, is a genus of fast-growing deciduous trees, one of three species of conifers known as redwoods. The living species '' Metasequoia glyptostroboides'' is native to Lichuan county in Hubei province, China. Althou ...

s'' planted in 1950, and now said to be the tallest in the south (over in height). In 2016, a certification from Bee Campus USA recognized the arboretum's efforts to teach about and support pollinators.

Gardens

* Blue Ridge Quilt Garden -

parterre A ''parterre'' is a part of a formal garden constructed on a level substrate, consisting of symmetrical patterns, made up by plant beds, low hedges or coloured gravels, which are separated and connected by paths. Typically it was the part of ...

reflecting quilt designs of the

Blue Ridge Mountains The Blue Ridge Mountains are a Physiographic regions of the world, physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains range. The mountain range is located in the Eastern United States, and extends 550 miles southwest from southern Pennsy ...

. * Cliff Dickinson Holly Garden - a variety of American and non-native

hollies The Hollies are a British pop rock band, formed in 1962. One of the leading British groups of the 1960s and into the mid-1970s, they are known for their distinctive three-part vocal harmony style. Allan Clarke and Graham Nash founded the band ...

. * French Broad River Watershed Training Center - Educational programs relating to streambanks and waterways, pasture management, stormwater runoff, and erosion control. * Heritage Garden - a demonstration garden for plants used in traditional Western

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

crafts, including dye-making, basketry, paper-making, and broom-making. * National Native Azalea Repository - a streamside garden representing almost every azalea species native to the United States, with cultivated varieties and hybrids. This repository is part of the

North American Plant Collections Consortium The Plant Collections Network (PCN) (formerly the North American Plant Collections Consortium) is a group of North American botanical gardens and arboreta that coordinates a continent-wide approach to plant germplasm preservation, and promotes exce ...

. * Plant Professional Landscape Garden (2 acres) - a study, training, and testing site that contains 250+ ornamental plants from the Certified Plant Professional exam. * Plants of Promise Garden - residential demonstration gardens that include plants being evaluated for the Southern Appalachian region. * Stream Garden - a formal setting of trees, shrubs and perennials. * Support Facility Perennial Border - perennial flowers. * Garden Railway

Bonsai collection

The arboretum's bonsai collection was established in 1992 with the donation of a large number of plants and containers from Mr. and Mrs. George Staples. Today the collection includes approximately 100 display specimens, with more than 100 additional settings in various stages of development. Specimens include traditional Asian trees such as Japanese

maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since http ...

and Chinese

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

; tropical plants such as willow leaf

fig The fig is the edible fruit of ''Ficus carica'', a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Moraceae. Native to the Mediterranean and western Asia, it has been cultivated since ancient times and is now widely grown throughout the world ...

; and American species such as

bald cypress ''Taxodium distichum'' (bald cypress, swamp cypress; french: cyprès chauve; ''cipre'' in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a wide ...

and limber

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accepts ...

References

External links

North Carolina Arboretum
{{Coord, 35.4976, -82.6090, region:US-NC_type:landmark, display=title Affiliates of the University of North Carolina Arboreta in North Carolina Botanical gardens in North Carolina Buildings and structures in Buncombe County, North Carolina Protected areas of Buncombe County, North Carolina

Gardens

Bonsai collection

See also

References

External links