Events & Programs at the Arboretum

Spring Weekend Photo Scavenger Hunt

Grab a camera or phone and stop by the Haggerty Education Center for a nature photo scavenger hunt. Visitors can pick up the list, head outside and shoot away. Take a picture of every item, return to the Education Center and pick up your prize.

Scavenger lists will change every month:

• April’s theme is “April Showers”
• May’s is “Big, Bigger, Biggest”; and
• The theme for June is “Magic in the Air”.

What a great way to explore the arboretum and to get the family outside in the fresh air.

When: Saturdays and Sundays in April, May and June -- Families welcome to participate any time between 9 am and 3:30 pm

No registration is necessary – just come to the front desk receptionist at the Haggerty Education Center.

Cost: Cost: $10 per family

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Garden Tours Return

On the first Sunday of the month, from April through October, meet us in the lobby of the Haggerty Education Center for a free tour of the grounds of The Frelinghuysen Arboretum. Learn some of the history and enjoy the beauty of this exceptional horticultural site with a knowledgeable tour guide.

If you are interested in becoming a tour guide, give Marge a call at 973 631 5049 or email her at mhulstrunk@morrisparks.net

Sundays April 7, May 5, June 2, July 7, August 4, September 1 and October 6

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

In Our Gallery - May

Grounded in History: Garden Preservation

In honor of National Preservation Month, the Morris County Park Commission highlights over five-decades of dedication to preservation through a very unique exhibit focusing on its garden preservation. This exhibit showcases some of the people, places, and plants that the Park Commission has both saved and restored. Learn about the preservation of an important constellation of gardens and landscapes, unique in the country.

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Garden Sprouts - Ka-Bloom!

The first warm days of Spring should be behind us and Summer is stretching out in front. Everything is growing like crazy. Help harvest fresh herbs from the garden and make a snack for a picnic and story on the lawn.

Cost: $5 per child for members / $7 for non-members

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Viburnums: A Must for Every Garden

From leaves to flowers to berries, discover why you should have this wonderful shrub in your yard. With instructor Bryan Lowe, examine the characteristics of Viburnum in a lecture in the Stone Barn and then get up close and personal with a tour of the collection at Willowwood Arboretum. Appropriate footwear is a must! This program is being held at WILLOWWOOD ARBORETUM.

Register by May 16

Cost: $12 members / $15 non-members

Location: Willowwood Arboretum

Sponsor: Friends

In Our Gallery - June

Abandoned to Nature

Visit this wonderful photography exhibit by Abagail Eckert that explores the toll nature takes on abandoned structures throughout the Tri-State area, and the inner beauty that can be found in the dilapidation and decay. This is an excellent way to teach young people about preservation and to remind ourselves about this cycle of nature, too. Ms. Eckert has shown in our Gallery in previous years and always teaches and entertains with her beautiful work.

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Bamboo Brook Open House

Tours, children’s activities, lectures and refreshments are enough to entice anyone to come out to Bamboo Brook for a visit. The history of Bamboo Brook is fascinating and the grounds are beautiful now that they have been restored to their original splendor. The Morris County Park Commission is proud to show them off with help from The Friends of The Frelinghuysen Arboretum, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and the Association of Professional Landscape Designers. Bring binoculars, a magnifying glass and wear a sturdy pair of walking shoes.

Cost: Free

Location: Bamboo Brook

Sponsor: Friends

Great Swamp Bonsai Society

Annual Bonsai Open House

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: GSBS

Butterflies of Arizona

North American Butterfly Association - Butterflies of Arizona, speaker to be announced.

Chapter members who attended the NABA Biennial Meeting found a dazzling array of butterflies amid the grasslands and “sky island” mountain ranges of southeastern Arizona.

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: NABA

Friends Annual Meeting

Membership has its benefits and the Annual Meeting is a fine example. We have a wonderful speaker lined up for our Annual Meeting this year. Margaret Roach will be here to give a talk she calls "The 365-Day Garden”.

Margaret is the author of The Backyard Parables: Lessons on Gardening and Life. In 2007, she left her job as Editorial Director of Martha Stewart Living and headed for her garden in rural upstate New York. There she began AWayToGarden.com (called “the best garden blog” by Anne Raver of The New York Times) and wrote the dropout memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There in 2011. Today, she writes, writes, writes and digs, digs, digs--and lectures about what she calls “horticultural how-to and woo-woo."

Following Margaret’s presentation, we will enjoy refreshments organized by our Board of Trustees. Please remember to make your reservation so we may include you in our plans.

Register by May 31

Cost: Free, but registration is required

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Peonies and Pop Up Shops

Ah the peony! Mother of flowers in China, revered the world over, the peony has much to recommend it. Its silky petals, its perfumed scent – no wonder it is a perennial garden favorite.

Watch as artist Echo Wu captures the peony’s spirit in her lovely brush paintings – perhaps you will win one in our hourly drawings! Echo will be demonstrating the art of Chinese brush painting in our Cottage Garden, whose collection includes a number of outstanding peony cultivars.

A fine selection of peony plants will be offered for sale in our nearby Pop-Up Shop featuring Atlock Nursery. Atlock Nursery is known for its outstanding and unusual plant material. The staff can advise you about peony care to assure that you will soon be enjoying the peony in your garden. Members of The Friends of The Frelinghuysen Arboretum will receive a 10% discount on all peony purchases. A free peony plant will be given to the first five people to purchase a membership in The Friends of The Frelinghuysen Arboretum!

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Tri-State African Violet Council

Joint meeting of The Tristate African Violet Council and the NJ Council of African Violet Judges.

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: AVC

Litchfield Lark: Overnight Bus Trip

The Friends of The Frelinghuysen Arboretum and DIG IT! Magazine bring you a very special garden experience this June on a Litchfield Lark! Leave the driving to us on an overnight garden-intensive adventure to Litchfield County, Connecticut. Accommodations and almost every meal are included.

We are thrilled so many of you signed up already for this wonderful trip! If you want to be added to our waiting list, call the office at (973) 326-7603. Places do sometimes open up.

You’ll enjoy guided tours at four celebrated private estates with stellar gardens, stay at an inn in Torrington, CT and have a personal tour at White Flower Farm, with the opportunity to do some passion quenching shopping! The gardens are:

Hollister House

• Maywood Garden
• Hollister House Garden
• Linda Allard's Garden
• Bunny William's Garden

Lots more details about the gardens and trip may be found on this page.

The cost of this trip includes the bus, hotel, breakfast, two lunches, and all garden admissions and tours. The only thing you buy is dinner! And plants!

This entire trip, including all of the gardens, is in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut. All of the properties have rolling terrain with varying paths to walk on such as stone steps, loose gravel, mulch, soil, wood chips and lawn. Please wear sturdy, secure shoes and be prepared to do some walking. NO SANDALS OR HEELS. None of the gardens on our tour are handicapped accessible.

Bus seats are limited!

Register by June 1

Cost: $375 per person

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Grow, Cook, Eat -- Beans, Beans, and More Beans

A New Garden Series

Do you like to eat as much as you like to garden? Want to learn more about new and different varieties of vegetables? Wondering what to do when all those summer squash ripen on the same day?

This new series held on the third Wednesday of the month during the gardening season will help you solve all these dilemmas and more. Horticultural Program Specialists Gwen Montgomery and Cynthia Triolo will focus on a different garden vegetable each month to help bring gardening full circle for you and your family. They provide growing suggestions and planting tips for those tried and true varieties and take a closer look at some new and unusual varieties that you will want to try in your own garden. Seeds, recipes and best of all, tastes of a sample prepared dish will inspire you to get outside and plant something so that you too can go from garden to table. In April, we’ll concentrate on root crops and radishes, May will be all about tomatoes and June’s topic is beans.

Classes: (current one highlighted)

• March 20 - Salad Greens
• April 17 - Roots & Radishes
• May 15 - Tomatoes

• June 19 - Beans, Beans, and More Beans

• July 17 - Summer Squash
• August 21 - Cooking Greens (Chard, Kale and others)
• September 18 - Eggplants and their relatives
• October 16 - Edible Alliums
• November 20 - Winter Squash

Cost: $15 members / $20 non-members

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Fairy Day

Fairies are coming! Bring the family to the 7th Fairy Day and create a house for The Frelinghuysen Arboretum’s visiting fairies, just in time for the Summer Solstice.

To prepare for their stay, houses need to be built and families are invited to celebrate with us on the Sylvan Terrace. Greet the fairies with music and fairy snacks and learn which plants and trees will attract fairies to your own backyard. All supplies – bark, branches, lichens, mosses, feathers, stones and leaves – will be provided, or bring your own as long as it’s natural. Fairies shun man-made materials.

All the fairy houses will be on display through the end of July. To see photos of previous Fairy Houses or to get ideas for your own house visit the photo gallery at www.arboretumfriends.org.

The rain date for this event is Sunday, June 30.

Register by June 16

Cost: $30 per house

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

Cooking Demonstration: Will The Zucchini Never End?

We all feel that way when zucchini comes into season here in New Jersey. Learn some new ways to prepare it and take the ho-hum out of your zucchini harvest.

Register by June 16

Cost: $20 members / $25 non-members

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends

SAVE THE DATE - Gingerbread Wonderland 2013

Save the date for Gingerbread Wonderland 2013. It will run from Friday, December 5 through Sunday, December 15, 2013.

Cost: Free

Location: Haggerty Center

Sponsor: Friends