Sign up now to help world-famous public gardens, learn new skills
Planting and weeding in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden depends in part on the dedication of volunteers. Signups for 2025 now are being accepted. Courtesy UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden
Start making plans for a 2025 full of nature, outdoor time and helping others. Where? At the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden.
UCD’s world-famous arboretum is now accepting applications for garden volunteers. Deadline is Jan. 13.
“Volunteering with the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden is a rewarding way to spend time in nature, socialize with community members, and pick up new skills,” say the organizers. “We are currently recruiting volunteers for our regular weekday gardening teams.”
These volunteers will help the arboretum’s experts tend the campus’s themed gardens and collections such as the Acacia Grove, the Storer Garden and the California Native Plant Meadow. The arboretum boasts 30 distinct gardens and collections, so there are plants to match just about every interest.
Volunteers are expected to make a one-year commitment, but the schedulers are pretty flexible; volunteers can take long breaks and vacations, say the organizers.
Volunteers with some garden knowledge are particularly wanted, but total beginners are OK, too. No matter your skill level, there are opportunities to learn a lot in this vibrant environment.
This recruitment drive is just for garden volunteers who will get their hands dirty with planting, weeding and other tasks. Volunteers for 2025 plant sales and work at the Arboretum Teaching Nursery will be recruited separately.
For full details and to apply: https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/form/apg-volunteer-training-applicati
For more about the arboretum and its gardens: https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu/
Comments
0 comments have been posted.Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.
Thanks to Our Sponsor!
Local News
Sites We Like
Garden Checklist for week of Jan. 12
Once the winds die down, it’s good winter gardening weather with plenty to do:
* Prune, prune, prune. Now is the time to cut back most deciduous trees and shrubs. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs such as lilacs.
* Now is the time to prune fruit trees. (The exceptions are apricot and cherry trees, which are susceptible to a fungus that causes dieback. Save them until summer.) Clean up leaves and debris around the trees to prevent the spread of disease.
* Prune roses, even if they’re still trying to bloom. Strip off any remaining leaves, so the bush will be able to put out new growth in early spring.
* Clean up leaves and debris around your newly pruned roses and shrubs. Put down fresh mulch or bark to keep roots cozy.
* After the wind stops, apply horticultural oil to fruit trees to control scale, mites and aphids. Oils need 24 hours of dry weather after application to be effective.
* This is also the time to spray a copper-based fungicide to peach and nectarine trees to fight leaf curl. (The safest effective fungicides available for backyard trees are copper soap -- aka copper octanoate -- or copper ammonium, a fixed copper fungicide. Apply either of these copper products with 1% horticultural oil to increase effectiveness.)
* When forced bulbs sprout, move them to a cool, bright window. Give them a quarter turn each day so the stems will grow straight.
* Browse through seed catalogs and start making plans for spring and summer.
* Divide daylilies, Shasta daisies and other perennials.
* Cut back and divide chrysanthemums.
* Plant bare-root roses, trees and shrubs.
* Transplant pansies, violas, calendulas, English daisies, snapdragons and fairy primroses.
* In the vegetable garden, plant fava beans, head lettuce, mustard, onion sets, radicchio and radishes.
* Plant bare-root asparagus and root divisions of rhubarb.
* In the bulb department, plant callas, anemones, ranunculus and gladioli for bloom from late spring into summer.
* Plant blooming azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons. If you’re shopping for these beautiful landscape plants, you can now find them in full flower at local nurseries.
Powered by California Local
