Arboretum
What is an arboretum?
An arboretum is a place where trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants are grown for scientific and educational purposes. Plants are maintained, labeled, cataloged and mapped. Each arboretum is unique, due to the characteristics of the setting, the collections, and the research and educational goals.
Arboretum Goals
- Provide an aesthetically pleasing, diverse and accessible landscape conducive to academic study, recreation, meditation and visitor interest.
- Identify future planting goals through landscape guidelines that visually and spatially reinforce the character of both artificial and natural environments on campus.
- Develop the arboretum as an outdoor laboratory to provide opportunities for botany, biology and horticulture.
- Preserve unique natural plant specimens of historic value.
- Incorporate future plantings that are sustainable in Central New York, with an emphasis on native species.
- Provide interpretive materials such as plant identification signs, maps and accession records.
- Provide opportunities for partnerships with local plant organizations.
Arboretum Recognition
Hamilton Receives 2024 Tree Campus Recognition from Arbor Day Foundation
The Arbor Day Foundation recognized Hamilton College as a 2024 Tree Campus for its dedication to enhancing community well-being through tree education, investment, and community engagement.
Arboretum Receives Global Accreditation
The Hamilton College Arboretum has been awarded a Level II Accreditation by The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum, for achieving particular standards of professional practices deemed important for arboreta and botanic gardens.
Peonies
Professor of Chemistry A.P. Saunders hybridized the peonies in the early- to mid-1900s. His work with tree peonies — which resulted in 80 named varieties — was a notable achievement and his fame especially established with hybridizing the yellow tree peony. The Grant Garden, created by Elihu Root for his daughter, Edith Root, was renovated in 1996 to become a display garden for peonies.
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Arboretum
