Flowering Tree Collection
This collection consists of small ornamental trees such as crabapples, cherries, and Amur cork trees. These trees were selected for their decorative properties, disease resistance, multi-seasonal interest, and low-maintenance qualities.
Nut Tree Collection
This is the oldest accessioned collection in the Arboretum and one of the older plant collections at the Botanic Gardens. The trees were planted in the early 1960s to study varieties of pecan, hickory, and walnut and consist of 20 cultivars.
Newman Meadow and Slim Jim Woods
This long swath of meadow in front of you is only mowed twice per year to reduce fuel use and encourage habitat for pollinators and other wildlife. Take a side trip through the mowed paths to a trail through Slim Jim woods, which leads to the oldest oak in the arboretum at the top of the hill. The woods, featuring tall white pines and a walking path, are bordered with a cultivated planting of trees such as three-flower maple, kousa dogwood, serviceberry, and ‘Bobwhite’ crabapples. Fun Fact: No one knows where the name “Slim Jim” originated.
Floriculture War Memorial
This sheltered area offers quiet reflection and was aptly chosen to commemorate Cornell students who studied floriculture or ornamental horticulture and lost their lives in service during World Wars I and II. It features boggy areas and running water, and shows ways to use wet areas as attractive landscape features. Look for plants that grow well in the boggy areas around this stream including umbrella magnolia, rhododendrons, Japanese pieris, Western skunk cabbage, and fetterbush.
Treman Woodland Walk
Like the Floriculture War Memorial, this hemlock-shaded streamside garden provides conditions to grow plants that would not grow well elsewhere at Cornell Botanic Gardens. Look for moisture-loving plants, such as marsh marigold, Asian skunk cabbage, and Japanese primroses. Additionally, ferns, globeflower, azaleas, umbrella plants, and hostas grow rampantly along the stream, giving the garden a whimsical, uncultivated atmosphere.
Zucker Shrub Collection
This area is guaranteed to provide gardening inspiration for your home landscape. Here you can walk through a series of garden “rooms” that display stunning arrangements of shrubs, grasses, and large-statured perennials. Make your way to the opposite end where you will find 18 types of lilacs and 32 types of hydrangeas, about one-third of the hydrangea varieties we grow throughout our gardens. In the United States, using hydrangeas in a wedding bouquet has come to symbolize enduring love.
Plant Production Facility
The greenhouse and wooden “lath house” comprise our plant production facility. Our greenhouse manager grows many of the plants we display from seeds and cuttings that start here. In the winter, our greenhouses store many plants we display in containers that would not withstand cold temperatures.If you’d like to explore one of our natural areas, the trail adjacent to this building leads to the Fall Creek Valley Loop, one of our guided tours.
Native Maple Collection
This core collection at the Botanic Gardens consists of 308 trees, representing 195 species and cultivars. Because the maples in this collection are quite diverse and require very different site conditions, they are spread throughout the Botanic Gardens. Maples hold strong significance to cultures around the world. The Haudenosaunee, Indigenous people of New York State, gather at the Maple Ceremony in late winter to show appreciation for the sugar maple’s gift of sap and approaching new life in spring. As the climate continues to warm, scientists predict that sugar maples will decline in their current range. This maple collection can provide the genetic material to develop more tolerant varieties to prevent the loss of sugar maples and the knowledge and traditions that come with it.
Newman Overlook
Notice the bowl-shaped hillsides and flatlands from this overlook, known as Newman Overlook. This landscape was sculpted by nearby Fall Creek since the retreat of the most recent glacier over 15,000 years ago. This rolling landscape provides a variety of growing conditions for this diverse display of trees, shrubs, and other plants found here. It is a tradition to gently ring the bell to signal your presence at this special place.Next to the Newman overlook is the collection of trees named the “Beech loop” acknowledging the 11 different varieties of the European beech (Fagus sylvatica) as well as the American Beech (Fagus grandifolia). Look for silver tags on trees to help you identify trees here and throughout the arboretum.
Goldsworthy Holocaust Memorial
These four boulders were carefully selected by famed artist Andy Goldsworthy to commemorate those who both survived and died in the Holocaust of World War II. The dwarf chestnut oaks growing through holes drilled in these granite boulders symbolize the resilience people develop from enduring hardship and remind us of our common humanity. This peice is an extension of the "Garden of Stones" exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.
Urban Tree Collection
The trees along this road are part of the Urban Tree Collection. They are used for on-going research by the Urban Horticulture Institute to select the best trees and shrubs to thrive in urban areas, which must tolerate compact/poorly drained soil, road salt, high soil pH, windy conditions, and other stresses. Trees, shrubs and other plants are vital to the quality of life in urban areas for their ability to keep temperatures cooler, reduce water pollution, manage stormwater, provide beauty, and much more.
Oak Collection
Many of the 180 oak trees growing at Cornell Botanic Gardens are found here in the Peterson Oak Grove. Oaks (the genus Quercus) have 500 known species distributed widely across the Northern Hemisphere. With their large stature and long life, oaks have long been considered sacred and embody wisdom and strength in many cultures. Climate change, invasive species, and deforestation are threatening 30% of oak species worldwide. We are part of a network of public gardens in North America that collectively works to preserve all species and varieties of oaks and breed new varieties that can adapt to a variety of conditions.In the oak grove, you will find the watercourse garden. This attractive grouping of trees, shrubs, and perennials grows in two shallow trenches, which collect and filter water flowing down this hill during a rainstorm, which would otherwise erode a trench in the hillside. As climate change continues to bring about more frequent and intense storm events, planting a “rain garden” like this of any size will reduce erosion damage and remove pollutants from stormwater. For more information about this garden, please read the sign (image showing sign location above).
Crabapple Collection
Many of Cornell Botanic Gardens’ 92 different types of apples (Malus sp.) are located in the crabapple collection here. Cherished for their striking blooms, apples have acquired symbolic meanings in many cultures over centuries. In Celtic culture, they represent motherhood and maternal instinct. In Chinese art, crabapple flowers and peonies convey a phrase meaning “May the whole family achieve wealth and honor.” In 19th-century England, giving an apple blossom communicated your preference for the receiver. This relatively new collection of crabapples aims to represent the best cultivars for this region based on disease and insect resistance, flower and fruit characteristics, and general overall reliability.
Dogwood Collection
Showy flowers and fruit, rich fall colors, and interesting bark make dogwoods attractive in all seasons. The Palmer-Kinne Dogwood Collection includes 13 species of dogwoods (genus Cornus), each with varying native ranges that span North America, Europe, and Asia. Further north along Arboretum Road, this collection also contains several kousa and cornelian cherry dogwoods. Native to southern Europe, the Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) has red-colored wood has been used to dye traditional Turkish fez hats—one of many ways dogwoods are used and valued by cultures around the world. Many of our shrubby dogwoods are coppiced (cut down to the ground) each year to ensure new, and therefore vibrantly colored, twig growth.
Sculpture Garden
Just as the plants and other natural features in this arboretum are used extensively for research and class instruction, these sculptures were built as a class project in 1961 by architecture students. Under the guidance of professor Jack Squier, these students learned first-hand about sculpture, design, and carpentry. They volunteered their own time and money toward the project, and participated in every aspect of the planning and construction of the sculptures. This experience helped prepare the students for distinguished careers in architecture.
Houston and Grossman Ponds
The two ponds here were created in 1980 as part of the arboretum's landscape design and are frequently used for research and class instruction. Within these freshwater aquatic ecosystem, there are a diverse array of water plants including cattails, water lilies, pickerel weed, yellow flag iris, and bald cypress as well as animals including reptiles, amphibians, insects, fish and crustaceans–making them great places for pond study. Floyd R. Newman (class of 1912) provided funding for the construction of the ponds, paths, and other features that transformed a former cow pasture into this Arboretum in the 1980's (see photo of when this space was a cow pasture above).
