Arboretum

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. - It's not often you get to watch a new public garden literally rise up out of the mud. But that's happening just down the road from Pennsylvania State University's Beaver Stadium, on the site of a former parking lot for football games. The H.O. Smith Botanic Gardens, on the corner of East Park Avenue and Bigler Road in State College, officially opened in April. As the only public garden in central Pennsylvania, it's now part of the legacy that has established this region of the country as the horticultural center of the United States.

Nicole Ross knows the chaos of major productions. That is why the 33-year-old director of marketing and multicultural affairs for the Philadelphia Film Office decided to keep her wedding low-key. In doing so, Ross pulled off a beautiful ceremony bubbling with 1940s glamour and sleek modern style. From the African wooden sculpture from Galerie Hamid in Glenside that she used as a reception decoration to her vintage-style dress, Ross put her special touch on the nuptials, held Labor Day weekend at Morris Arboretum.

Families can enjoy a day of fall activities Sunday at the 18th annual Blackwood Pumpkin Festival. The event, scheduled 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., is sponsored by Mainstage Center for the Arts and Beneficial Bank, in celebration of National Arts and Humanities Month. The South Jersey festival will offer food, games, music, and crafts presented by more than 200 vendors, and has four stages with entertainment. There are hayrides, a pumpkin-carving contest, a petting zoo, face painting, and more.

Sure, this is Philadelphia, where naming something for Ben Franklin is about as rare as a chorus of boos when the Mets come to town. And yes, the practice is even more understandable at the University of Pennsylvania's Morris Arboretum - as homage to the school's founder. Still, this one's a reach. "This is the Ben Franklin tree," said Bob Gutowski, arboretum director of public programs, placing his hand on a majestic, 250-year-old chestnut oak. "It had a lot of children; so did he. " Indeed, the name could use some work - Franklin had just three kids, after all. Thankfully, the rest of the 92-acre property in Chestnut Hill doesn't lack for creativity.

Children and adults can explore the relationship between plants and people at Tree Adventure, a new exhibit opening Saturday at Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania. This permanent outdoor exhibit will offer visitors a bird's-eye view of the forest. From Out on a Limb, a 450-foot-long canopy walk that is five stories above ground level, visitors can cross a swaying suspension bridge to Bird's Nest, scamper onto Squirrel Scramble's rope netting skirting two towering trees, head to the top of the Wissahickon Vista platform, or just continue to wander the walk.

The folks at Jenkins Arboretum in Devon have been so "green" for so long, you wonder: Is it in the water? They use donated garden tools that they dutifully clean and sharpen. They print on both sides of their copy paper, something we've been meaning to do. They bundle errands to save gasoline, also on our to-do list, and in winter, without complaint, they layer up to curb heating costs. "We've always been frugal," says executive director Harold E. Sweetman, who speaks of this 46-acre woodland sanctuary in personal terms.

Patrick Dougherty thrives on artistic derring-do. For 21 years, this improbably modest sculptor has taken on one creative assignment after another, always in a new city and never knowing what he'll do till he gets there. All he knows is this: Whatever he creates will be outside, made of sticks, and destined to last only two or three years before it succumbs to wind, rain, snow, and the inevitable time and decay. Dougherty, 63 and from Chapel Hill, N.C., is in the midst of a three-week artist-in-residency at the Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill.

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.

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.

There is, perhaps, no more energetic creature on Earth than a 7-year-old boy, zipping here, crashing there, all elbows and knees. So it comes as a bit of a shock to see a half-dozen uniformed second graders from Chestnut Hill Academy standing still, eyes focused on a tiny tree, as one of them tilts a watering can downward to give the sapling a drink. Young Nate McDowell explains: "This is an American chestnut tree. There used to be a lot of them on the East Coast, but they got a disease called blight, and a lot got sick and died.