The recipient of the 2010 Volunteer Legacy Award, Carol Allison (center), celebrates with her family at the Annual Meeting reception.

Foundation members are invited to join us at the Graham Visitors Center for our 2013 Annual Meeting on Wednesday, June 19, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Hear a review of our past year’s accomplishments, participate in our board of directors elections, and congratulate the winner of our Volunteer Legacy Award. Then enjoy a light reception on the terrace of the visitors center after the formal proceedings have concluded.

All members welcome! No admission charge.

We hope to see you there! Please RSVP by Friday, June 14, to Jeff Boyer at jboyer@arboretumfoundation.org or by calling 206-325-4510.

Trudy Stack and her husband Harold at a donor plaque dedication ceremony for the Gateway to Chile Garden in 2011.

Longtime friend of the Arboretum Trudy Stack passed away on May 19 at the age of 96. For many years, Trudy was a member of Laurelhurst-based volunteer Unit 45 and helped organize fundraising activities for the Arboretum through that unit. With her husband of 70 years, Harold, she also donated generously to the Foundation. Their gifts included a very significant donation to our endowment in 2011 to help maintain the new Pacific Connections Garden, as well as for general care of the Arboretum collections.

Trudy supported many local organizations besides the Arboretum, including the Volunteer Park Conservancy, Seattle Symphony, and Woodland Park Zoo. She and Harold were also very proud of the scholarship program they funded for Roosevelt and Garfield High School students.

“I loved getting to know Trudy,” says Foundation executive director Paige Miller. “She was full of spunk, excited about life, and engaged with the world. Her daughter, Nancy Mack, said that Trudy was her generation’s Facebook, always connecting people. And she loved the Arboretum! She went walking here on Mother’s Day, just a week before she died, aged 96.”

Trudy is survived by Harold, their four children, Sally Lehmann, Nancy Mack, Robert Stack, and Katie Stack, as well as six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Read her full obituary in the Seattle Times.

Trudy’s family named the Arboretum Foundation and Volunteer Park Conservatory as places to make gifts in her honor.

The Arboretum Foundation received a total of $22,387 from 65 donors during the Seattle Foundation’s annual GiveBIG on Wednesday, May 15. A very BIG thank you to everyone who generously donated! Your gifts help us sustain this city’s treasured Arboretum and educate its children about the importance of preserving nature in the urban environment.

We’ve yet to find out how much of the event matching funds or “stretch pool” we’ll be receiving. Stay tuned.

A special thanks to the Seattle Foundation and its GiveBIG sponsors for making this amazing annual giving event possible!

The New Zealand entry garden at the Pacific Connections Meadow, provides a glimpse of the what lies ahead when the 2-acre New Zealand Forest is planted in 2013.

Construction of the two-acre New Zealand Forest at Pacific Connections got underway this past winter and is scheduled to be completed by the end of August. Currently, the contractor is finishing up the infrastructure portion of the project, including the construction of a bus turnaround on Arboretum Drive and the installation of the irrigation systems for the forest. Soil grading and preparation will then take place. Planting starts in June.

More than 10,000 plants representing over 90 different taxa from 9 plant communities will be planted in the garden. The opening ceremonies, which will include a guest appearance by a Maori carving artist, are set for September 13 and 15. Stay tuned!

The Foundation is currently running a campaign to create an endowment that will fund the long-term maintenance of the New Zealand Forest. For more information, please contact email Randall Hitchin or call him at 206-325-4510.

Learn about the ferns of the Cascades in our July 13 experience.

Summer is fast approaching, and you’re invited to participate in one or more exciting experience events that we have programmed for July. Hosted by patrons of the Arboretum Foundation, these unique experiences—two hiking trips to the Cascades and one exclusive chef’s dinner—were originally offered as part of our silent auction at the Opening Night Party in February. Spaces are still available in each of the three events.

Chef’s dinner: Enjoy a sumptuous meal prepared by one of Seattle’s finest chef’s, Peter Levine, at the fabulous Queen Anne home of Beth Bryson Morgan on Friday, July 12. (Price: $125 per person.)

Guided fern hike: Take a guided hike along the Perry Creek Trail in the Cascade Mountains with local fern authority, Judith Jones, on Saturday, July 13. Picnic included. (Price: $75 per person.)

Wildflower adventure: Join Arboretum staff gardener and experienced outdoorsman Paul Smith on a day-hike through the Esmerelda Basin to view meadow wildflowers in peak bloom, on Saturday, July 27. Picnic included. (Price: $100 per person.)

Click here for full details.

For more information or to make a reservation, please email Sheila Beer or call her at 206-325-4510.

The volunteers in our Pat Calvert Greenhouse program.

We are looking for an experienced and driven individual to manage, strengthen, and broaden our comprehensive volunteer program. Key responsibilities include the recruitment, cultivation, assignment, orientation, and stewardship of volunteers for programs related to gardening and maintenance in the Arboretum, our retail nurseries and gift shop, fundraising events, one-time projects, outreach activities, and more. Read the full job description.

To apply, please send a resume with three references, writing sample, and cover letter to Paige Miller, Executive Director, Arboretum Foundation, 2300 Arboretum Dr., Seattle, WA 98112, or pmiller@arboretumfoundation.org. We will begin screening resumes on April 8, 2013.

The hobbit house surrounded by stunning plants from New Zealand.

The Arboretum’s display, “A Hobbit’s New Zealand Garden,” was a big hit a last week’s Northwest Flower & Garden Show in the Washington State Convention Center, Seattle. The playful yet beautifully planted display took home 6 top awards, including the Ethel Moss People’s Choice Award—the best garden in the show, as voted by the public.

The other awards received were: a judge’s Gold Medal, the Pacific Horticulture Magazine Award, the Sunset’s Western Living Award, the 425 Magazine Award, and the Fred Palmer Exhibitor Award—the garden voted most accomplished by our fellow garden creators in the show.

Thank you! Thanks to all the amazing volunteers, businesses, organizations, and individuals who helped create the display garden this year, including the New Zealand Consulate General, which generously sponsored the garden, and the Seattle-Christchurch Sister City Association, which provided us with expertise on New Zealand and a wonderful pool of volunteer docents.

Display Garden Plant Sale: On Saturday, March 2, 10 a.m. to noon, we’ll be selling many of the stunning plants from our display at the Graham Visitors Center. Unleash your inner hobbit by growing these plants in your garden, and help raise funds for the Arboretum! Read more.

520 bridge ramp in the Arboretum.

At a press conference in the Graham Visitors Center on January 24, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the Arboretum and Botanical Garden Committee (ABGC), which oversees capital projects at Washington Park Arboretum, announced that they had signed a historic agreement ensuring the implementation of key projects in the Arboretum’s Master Plan as required mitigation for the effects of the upcoming replacement of the SR 520 Bridge.

Under the terms of the new agreement, WSDOT will pay Seattle Parks and Recreation $7.81 million by the end of February to cover the costs of a first round of mitigation projects in the Arboretum, tied to the construction of the north span of new bridge through the Arboretum, which will begin as early as summer 2014. These projects include the design and construction of a 1-mile multi-use trail, as well as improvements to Azalea Way Pond, parts of Arboretum Creek, and Foster Island.

The agreement also creates a contractual framework for a final phase of mitigation that will take place in the Arboretum once WSDOT secures funding for the construction of the south span of the 520 through the Arboretum—and the new bridge is finally completed. These projects include the transfer of the WSDOT Peninsula to the Arboretum, shoreline restoration in the wetlands, the creation of a new north entry to the Arboretum, and the day-lighting of Arboretum Creek.

“The funding authorized by this groundbreaking agreement is the largest single amount ever dedicated to the Arboretum. It is exciting news for anyone who loves and uses our wonderful Arboretum,” says Jack Collins, Chair of ABGC. “Both the mitigation projects and the bridge replacement itself will provide some of the most dramatic improvements to the Arboretum in decades.”

Some of anticipated effects of the new 520 bridge within the Arboretum include the conversion of a half-acre of land in the Arboretum from recreation use to transportation use, and increased shading resulting from a wider bridge structure. However, construction of the new bridge will also bring direct improvements to the Arboretum, independent of the planned mitigation projects. Most notably, during the construction of the north span of the bridge, the Arboretum’s “ramps to nowhere,” remnants of the abandoned R.H. Thompson Expressway, will be removed. Noise from the new bridge spans will also be reduced using technologies such as quieter pavement.

Read the full press release about the agreement here.

Media Coverage:

KUOW: Arboretum Says Goodbye Highway Ramps, Hello Bike Trail
KOMO News: Arboretum Gets $7.7 Million for New Trail, Improvements
Seattle PI: 520 “Ramps to Nowhere” To Be Demolished
KING 5/NBC News: Arboretum Trades Empty Ramps for New Trails
Seattle Times: 520 Ramps to Come Down

John Van den Meerendonk supervises the placement of a western red cedar stump in the new fern display.

Staff from Botanica Landscape and Design, Inc. spent two days at the Graham Visitors Center last week working with Arboretum gardeners to create a new stumpery—an expansion of the Signature Bed fern garden. The stump garden will create a beautiful setting for a new display of ferns. John Van den Meerendonk, owner of Botanica and board president of Hardy Fern Foundation (HFF), supervised the placement of the large western red cedar stumps and logs, and he generously donated the cost of the materials, the transportation, and the labor. This past Saturday, members of the HFF board met at the Visitors Center to plant the ferns. The HFF folks donated their time—and 150 ferns! See photos of the planted display on our Facebook page.

Helleborus niger ‘HGC Josef Lemper’ blooming in the Witt Winter Garden.

With all the angst surrounding the “fiscal cliff” deal negotiations in late 2012, something very positive came out of the legislative agreement to avoid the cliff for those 70½ and older: the renewal of the IRA Charitable Rollover in the tax code. If you or someone you know has an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) and is 70½ or older—the age of IRS required minimum distributions—you can benefit from the rollover in several ways. For example, the rollover enables people to give tax-free donations to charity from their Traditional IRA account of any amount up to $100,000 yearly for 2012 and 2013. (Charitable distributions made before February 1, 2013, can count for 2012, if the donor so wishes.) Click here for more details.

If you would like to consider an IRA Charitable Rollover Gift to the Arboretum Foundation, please contact our executive director Paige Miller at 206-325-4510 or pmiller@arboretumfoundation.org.