Arboretum

What it is: A nonprofit public park, arboretum and wildlife sanctuary in Devon. The celebration: There is a full schedule of events throughout the summer celebrating the arboretum's 30th anniversary. Coming event: Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. is the arboretum's Lilliputian birthday event for children and families: Giant watering cans artfully placed throughout the arboretum's 20 acres of winding hills and natural woodlands make children feel tiny by comparison, just like the people of Lilliput.

Since they began in 1975, the outdoor sculpture exhibitions organized by Marsha Moss have become major summer art events in Philadelphia. This year, though, the show nearly turned into a non-event when the financially beleaguered Goode administration reneged on a $20,000 pledge of support. Moss managed to cover the loss from other sources so that the show could open on schedule today. She has applied for a Class 500 grant of $10,000, but the grants are not expected to be awarded until later this month.

Mention the Barnes Foundation and paintings come to mind. Lots and lots of fabulous artwork on the walls of eccentric old Albert Barnes' former home in Merion. But there's another, lesser-known universe there, one that will remain after the artwork moves to a new home on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at the end of 2011. It comprises a 12-acre arboretum and a small education program that is widely appreciated in horticultural circles and virtually unknown to the wider public. Now, something surprising - you might say downright un-Barnes-like - is happening.

Jared Grove and Brian Sullivan decided to go out on a limb. Without knowing much about it, they decided to commit a lot of their time to a subject that they once couldn't have cared less about. For the last several weeks, the two have been researching and cataloging more than 200 trees on the campus of Friends' Central as part of their senior project. It will help the school plan its arboretum. Most area schools have a senior project or career elective in May and June in which students spend two to four weeks doing community service or working on a job they may be interested in pursuing after graduation.

When Chuck Blatherwick announced his plans last spring to build an arboretum at Edgewood Senior High School, most of his environmental-science students did not know what the word meant. "Half of us couldn't even pronounce it," said Jill Rodio, 18, an Edgewood senior and president of the environmental club. "We were, like, 'What's that?' " Now Rodio and her classmates know the difference between a pitcher plant and a cattail - and more. What students in Edgewood Senior's environmental club are doing, they explained as they sank shovels into the muddy ground on Tuesday, is recreating a miniature Pinelands ecosystem with plants native only to the South Jersey area.

In the legal battle over the future of the Barnes Foundation and its renowned art collection, this critical issue has been overlooked: the fate of the arboretum and its horticulture program. Dr. Albert Barnes originally considered creating his art gallery in Center City, but he changed his plans when land owned by Capt. Joseph Lapsley Wilson - the beginnings of an arboretum - became available in Merion. Barnes bought the property in 1922, preserved the trees that Wilson had begun planting in the 1880s, and eventually expanded the collection to more than 3,000 species and varieties of woody plants.

Biblical passages mark the trail of the arboretum at the Church of the Saviour in Wayne. The messages are there to inspire hikers as they meander through two miles of winding paths in 29 acres behind the church's sanctuary. "We're not trying to save souls, but we are trying to get people into the church," said Don Young, director of the nature center. Young selects the verses and hand-paints them on small pieces of wood, which are tacked onto stakes in the ground. There will be 26 such messages on this spiritual journey, beginning with A ("And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air. " Genesis 2:19)

Villanova University has a secret. It's near the chapel where students flock on Sundays, near the library, and near the soccer field. In fact, Villanova's campus-wide arboretum - virtually unknown to the public and even students - is spread all over the 240-acre campus. It boasts one of the largest dawn redwoods on the East Coast, a Halka Zelkova that was already 20 feet tall when planted, a cutleaf Japanese maple, and many beech trees, the most widely recognized tree on campus.

The idea of inviting artists to create in - and in direct response to - a varied and attractive outdoor site such as the arboretum in West Fairmount Park is intrinsically appealing. The arboretum, home to a number of permanent sculptural monuments, has proved hospitable to all kinds of sculpture - organic work that harmonizes with its garden and woodland settings as well as more formalist work that contrasts with them. When she moved her summer sculpture exhibition to the arboretum in 1986, independent curator Marsha Moss invited artists to create site-specific works that would relate directly to the park or would address environmental issues.

Here in "the quiet arboretum" at Haverford College, you probably won't learn how to make a birdhouse or design a holiday centerpiece. Nothing wrong with classes and workshops, of course, but this place has a different, more introspective feel than other arboretums. Students and visitors are welcome to explore the 216-acre campus and otherwise enjoy the beauty of the arboretum's 2,500 trees, some as old as the college itself. "But we're quiet about it. We're more for passive enjoyment.

On 55 acres of historic landscape in the heart of urban Germantown, the yellow aconite is blooming, the snowdrops and purple crocuses are up, and you can sense the fragile promise of spring. That's a way of thinking about Awbury Arboretum, too, as it looks to reinvent itself - yet again. This grand old estate has new leadership and big plans: To stabilize finances, to work with the neighborhood and local schools, to tackle long-standing maintenance and organizational problems, and to reassert ownership of what Christopher R. van de Velde calls "our primary mission - the care and feeding of the landscape.

Curious about what some of the public gardens and arboretums in the Philadelphia region are planning for 2012? Here's a preview: Awbury Arboretum in Germantown has a new community apiary - three hives outside and a demonstration hive inside the Francis Cope House. A 10-session beekeeping course is under way and a 4-H beekeeping club is planned, as are honey sales. Beekeeper Anaiis Salles suggested the apiary because "Awbury has underutilized green space, plenty of room for hives, it's easy to get to, and has a really nontoxic environment.

Eavesdrop in a garden, and what do you hear? Not a lot of narrative. Mostly exclamations over the beauty of something and curiosity about what it is, in and around the absorbing silence. So it is that Paul W. Meyer has "written" a new book about the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill with no text, just photographs, most taken over the last eight years. Its title is a straightforward Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania Through the Lens of Paul W. Meyer. "It's meant to be a walk through the garden," explains Meyer, 59, a self-taught shutterbug who has worked at Morris for almost 36 years, the last 21 as director.

Maggie Knapp is about as lean and fit as a 50-year-old woman can be. And no wonder: She's spent literally half her life working outdoors at Jenkins Arboretum in Devon, where she's the head gardener. "Working outdoors" sounds as if she's leisurely raking leaves. Knapp does that, yes, but she also splits wood, chases trespassing deer, mans the snow plow and wields a steady chain saw. She prunes, plants, propagates, and weeds - and hauls a yeoman's load of mulch. You can't miss her. Spend even an hour at this 46-acre public garden, and she'll whiz by you in a golf cart, troubleshooting and problem-solving along 1.2 miles of paved walkways.

The Barnes Foundation will spend more than $300,000 in the coming months to revitalize its property in Merion, including its arboretum, in preparation for the continued use of the land and gallery space. After the galleries are temporarily closed July 3, the art will move to the new Barnes home on the Parkway in Center City, expected to open next June. At a Barnes Community Day that attracted 450 neighbors throughout Sunday, executive director and president Derek Gillman - himself a Merion resident - told visitors "the Barnes is not leaving Merion.

The Barnes Foundation will spend more than $300,000 to revitalize its grounds and structures in Merion in the coming months, in preparation for the continued use of the arboretum and the galleries. After the galleries are temporarily closed July 3, the art is moving to the new Barnes home on the Parkway in Center City, expected to open next June. At a Barnes Community Day that attracted 450 neighbors throughout the day Sunday, executive director and president Derek Gillman- himself a Merion resident - told the visitors that "the Barnes is not leaving Merion.

Morris Arboretum will offer the grand opening of the Garden Railway Display on Saturday, highlighting a Victorian theme. This year's theme will be "Painted Ladies," allowing visitors to see versions of Victorian homes from cities across the nation - including the colorful examples that have become famous in San Francisco. Arboretum volunteers dressed in Victorian garb will dispense interesting facts about the time period. Festivities, beginning at 1 p.m., will include craft activities and ice cream for kids, while it lasts.

Perhaps as a measure of the economy's stranglehold on new construction, this year's winner of Philadelphia's top architecture award went not to a building, but to an open-air children's attraction at the Morris Arboretum, the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects announced Wednesday at its annual meeting. Metcalfe Architecture & Design received the gold medal for Out on a Limb, a delightful elevated walkway that twists its way through the canopy of the arboretum's oldest trees.

When people talk about Karen Anderson, the new executive director at Awbury Arboretum, they use words like turnaround and crossroads that portend a need and desire for change. Anderson, 50, has been on the job since January, after six months as associate director. And it's true: She has her work cut out for her at Awbury, a gentle, underused garden with Quaker roots, a 55-acre, historic landscape, and an East Germantown address. "We're in a period of real reflection and renewal," she acknowledges.

In 2001, Paul W. Meyer, director of the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill, summoned his board of directors to the garage at Bloomfield Farm, across East Northwestern Avenue from the arboretum's public gardens. "I wanted the board to see what our horticulture staff was living with," Meyer recalls of the tiny, cluttered space where, for years, his employees held their morning meetings and ate lunch. His strategy worked. After years of authorizing projects to make the 92-acre garden visitor-friendly, the board agreed it was time to tend to the needs of staff.