November Newsletter

Calling Artists, Birdlovers, Crafters, Architects...

It's Time to Put the Finishing Touches on Your Creation

As part of our 6oth anniversary celebrations, we are holding a birdhouse contest. The contest, For the Birds, will culminate on December 2 with a display of all entries and a live auction in Legion Hall. This is a fundraiser for our Backyard Garden project. The winning entry will be displayed in the renovated garden for all to enjoy. All other entries will be in the auction; details to be announced later this month in a special newsletter.

Completed birdhouses should be delivered to the Arboretum's classroom building on Saturday, November 18 between 9 a.m. and noon.

"For the Birds" provides an opportunity for you to exercise your creativity, help us raise money for the Backyard Garden, and maybe buy a unique holiday present for someone on your gift list.

Wintertide Preparation Begins!

Plant sale work parties are over for the season, but you can still participate in volunteer work in the Arboretum throughout the month of November as we prep the gardens for our 4th year of Wintertide Lights.

We'll be stringing lights every Wednesday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon throughout the month to be sure we're ready for opening day, December 1st. Just show up and we'll put you to work. Not into winding light cords around trees? Come on out anyway and we'll find weeding or raking for you to do.

Knitting or Crocheting up a Storm to Celebrate 60 Years

It's time to get out your knitting needles or crochet hooks and get to work on colorful yarn covers for the Arboretum's trees. You can be as creative as you like (for inspiration just look online for amazing examples of yarn bombing) or keep it simple and knit a striped rectangle for us to sew around a trunk.

Color Storm is an opportunity for knitters of all skill levels to help cover the Arboretum with color in March, and it's the last special event planned in our year-long anniversary celebration. We're partnering with Everett's own Great Yarns, thanks to the generous support of owner Fontelle Jones.

Up Your Gardening Skills by Volunteering

Some volunteers are happy to just pull weeds--and we love them. There are so many weeds. Others come hoping to learn more about plants. Although plant sale work parties are over until next year, thanks to Sandy Milam these weekly volunteer opportunities have become more like hands-on classes than ever before. If learning more about plants and plant propagation and hanging basket design sounds appealing, keep an eye out in February or March of next year when we begin preparing in earnest for the June sale.

Ted Milam helps rebuild some of the holding beds for the plant sale. Special thanks to volunteer Gary Riggs for his help with the project and E & E Lumber of Marysville and Kyle Rossnagle for discounting the lumber. Also, thank you to Ty of Ty Martin Doors and King Kanasoot. Tye and King brought a van full of tools. The project was completed in just three hours.

Edmonds College intern Nina Shim works with two plant sale volunteers on dividing and potting plants. They dug up the geraniums from the entry bed and the brilliant cannas from the planters in front of the classroom and repotted them to overwinter in the hoop house. Look for them in baskets and decorative planters at our 2024 plant sale.

A Field Trip to the Denver Botanical Gardens

I got to check off one more garden in 1,001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die, a book given to me by my brother years ago, when we visited old friends in Denver in October. We went to visit our friends, but the gardens were a highlight. Denver Botanic Gardens fills 24 acres with a children's garden, glass houses for tropical plants, and gardens filled with plants that thrive in the city's climate. They also have a library available to all members with an amazing collection of horticultural books and magazines, at least two exhibition rooms for plant-related art, and an auditorium for programs.

Outside of downtown Denver there's more that we didn't have time to visit. It's all at least partly funded by a Scientific and Cultural Facilities taxing district approved by voters from Denver and surrounding areas in 1988. If you find yourself in Denver, you really should make time to visit.

Preparations for their annual Halloween event, Ghosts in the Gardens, were in full swing. We saw lights being strung, skeletons in a variety of settings, pumpkins atop scarecrow figures, and these eye-popping planters in a lily pond.

One of the art exhibits featured illustrations from Little Golden Books. Many well-known children's illustrators worked for the company. This illustration is by Richard Scarry.

Many gardens had just undergone renovations, especially those in their western gardens area. We saw logs placed amongst plants to provide homes for insects and soil improvements over time as they slowly degraded. I was particularly taken with this elaborate insect structure.

Nature outside and inside the Arboretum

It's a little bit hard to read, but the license plate on this bright green vehicle reads APHID. We're pretty sure the owner is a gardener.

You might not notice it at first glance, but that's a hydrangea flower someone placed on top of Fibonacci. The algae grows without anyone's help.