Learn about myriad types of farming and conservation-minded farm practices when Adkins Arboretum offers a series of local farm tours beginning this spring. Six farms across the Mid-Shore will welcome participants to learn about their products and land management efforts and to engage in a hands-on project to take home.

The series kicks off on Sun., May 19 with a tour of Cottingham Farm on the banks of Goldsborough Creek in Easton. Join owner Cleo Braver to learn about food farming and the infrastructure required for crops, chickens and pigs before exploring cover crops, greenhouses and processing and storage spaces. Participants will also cut garlic scapes and make garlic scape pesto.

On Sun., June 2, join Carrie Jennings for a guided tour of her field-grown specialty flowers at Honeybee Flower Farm in Cordova. Jennings grows flowers without insecticides; by growing varieties not readily available from overseas, her operation helps to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint. Participants should bring a vase or mason jar to create a cut flower arrangement to take home.

At Schoolhouse Farmhouse in Cordova, Lauren Giordano and George Burroughs follow a regenerative approach that includes minimal tilling, no synthetic pesticides or herbicides, and the use of cover crops. On Sun., June 23, learn how they use sustainable practices for vegetables, flowers and chickens. Participants will also take a walk through the meadow and create a hand-printed tea towel inspired by their surroundings.

On Sun., June 30, tour the organic cutting garden of floral designer and longtime Adkins docent Nancy Beatty. Owner of Sweetbay Designs, Beatty has grown her own flowers organically for more than 25 years. Participants will take home a tiny tussie-mussie made from greenery and mostly native plants.

Calico Fields Lavender Farm near Millington is on the tour schedule for Sun., July 7.

On their Calico Fields Lavender Farm near Millington, Christa and Jay Falstad grow their plants organically and tend and harvest them by hand to make high-quality bath and body products. Participants will cut their own lavender bunches and learn about the Falstads’ conservation efforts aimed at promoting native bee species and monarch butterflies.

A native nursery and garden center offering services and products that foster harmony with nature, Unity Church Hill Nursery & Farm has been growing produce, flowers, and vegetable and herb starts sustainably for the past three years. On Sun., Sept. 15, join Theresa Mycek for a tour of the food gardens to learn about the farm’s regenerative gardening methods. After the tour, participants will make a hardneck garlic “braid” to take home.

Each tour is $35 for Arboretum members and $40 for non-members. All tours run from 1 to 3 p.m. Advance registration is required at adkinsarboretum.org or by calling 410-634-2847, ext. 0.

Adkins Arboretum is a 400-acre native garden and preserve at the headwaters of the Tuckahoe Creek in Caroline County. Open year round, the Arboretum offers educational programs for all ages about nature and gardening. For more information about programs, visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0.

Known for its gently rolling hills and spectacular wildflower displays, Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, Del., inspires an appreciation for the beauty and value of native plants and a commitment to protect the habitats that sustain them. Join Adkins Arboretum on Wed., May 1 on a day trip for an in-depth look at the gardens and natural lands and to learn about notable native plants.

The former home and family estate of Lammot du Pont Copeland and his wife, Pamela Cunningham Copeland, Mt. Cuba features a stately Colonial Revival manor house built in 1935. Over time, the Copelands transformed the estate’s farmland into lush botanical gardens featuring some of the region’s most beautiful natives plants. In the 1960s, the couple became acutely aware of a changing ethic and thus became more concerned with ecology and the need for conservation. In response, noted landscape architect Seth Kelsey was hired to develop the woodland wildflower garden with native plants and to design the site’s ponds and many woodland garden paths. The site also includes formal gardens, trial gardens, a meadow and a dogwood path that radiates with spring blooms.

The gardens at Mt. Cuba Center in Hockessin, Del., are radiant with spring blooms. Photo courtesy of Mt. Cuba Center.

Trilliums, the star of the season, are expected to be in bloom. These rare and beautiful wildflowers grow in drifts at Mt. Cuba in early to midspring, producing a range of peculiar smells—from sweet to stinky—that attract many different pollinators. Trilliums have three petals, three sepals and three leaves and come in a wide range of colors, from pure white to lemony yellow to deep maroon. The gardens at Mt. Cuba Center include every trillium species native to the United States.

Tickets are $95 for Arboretum members and $120 for non-members. The fee includes transportation, driver gratuity, admission, a docent-led tour and a gourmet boxed lunch. The bus departs from Aurora Park Drive in Easton at 8 a.m. with additional stops near Wye Mills and Chestertown. Return time is approximately 5 p.m. Register at adkinsarboretum.org, or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0 to reserve a seat.

Adkins Arboretum is a 400-acre native garden and preserve at the headwaters of the Tuckahoe Creek in Caroline County. Open year round, the Arboretum offers educational programs for all ages about nature and gardening. For more information about programs, visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0.

Adkins Arboretum recently completed several projects at its nursery growing facilities with support from the Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust (SSHT). The improvements will have a direct and lasting impact on the Arboretum’s Native Plant Propagation Initiative, an ongoing effort to broaden the selection of native plant species available to the horticultural trade.

An $11,500 SSHT grant targeted needed maintenance and improvements at the Arboretum’s nursery. Throughout 2018, Horticultural Advisor Leslie Hunter Cario and Land Steward Kathy Thornton planned and deconstructed obsolete parts of the heated greenhouse. With the help of staff and volunteers, they installed roll-up side curtains that will allow for energy-efficient ventilation and covered the structure with a new double-layer poly film. A removable reflective shade cloth will be added this spring to help keep the greenhouse cool and operable during summer months. In addition, the non-functioning irrigation lines were removed and a replacement irrigation system was purchased for winter installation.

Grant funds also paid for improvements to the potting shed, including a new concrete floor and the electrical work necessary to install lights and fans funded by a previous SSHT grant. Previously used just for sowing seeds and potting seedlings, the potting shed is now a more functional workspace and offers space to hold education programs.

Adkins Arboretum Land Steward Kathy Thornton (left) and Chesapeake Conservation Corps intern Emily Castle.

With revitalized growing and potting space, the Arboretum looks forward to refocusing attention on the growing aspect of its propagation initiative, which includes starting local native plants from seeds and cuttings and developing propagation protocols for growing these plants. Begun in 2015, the Arboretum’s Native Plant Propagation Initiative focuses on under-represented native plant species with ornamental worthiness and important ecological benefits. This is accomplished by scouting for local populations—also known as local ecotypes—of desired native plants and following prescribed protocols to collect seeds and cuttings to propagate stock plants. GPS is used to map these populations on the Adkins grounds, which in turn helps to expand the Arboretum’s Living Collections Database. In addition to being used to produce more plants, stock plants will be planted in demonstrations or seed plots and will serve as a focal point for education programs.

Founded in 1980, originally as Maryland’s state arboretum, Adkins Arboretum has operated as a nonprofit since 1989. The Arboretum serves as a model for land management that strives to engage all people in the conservation, appreciation and enjoyment of the Chesapeake region’s native landscapes through education, recreation, the arts and community events. Located within Tuckahoe State Park near Ridgely, the Arboretum operates and maintains a visitor’s center, 400 acres of meadows, woods and wetlands, and five miles of paths under a 50-year lease with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. Its diverse collection includes more than 600 trees, plants, grasses and wildflower species native to the Eastern Shore and the Mid-Atlantic coastal plain. For more information, visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847.

The Stanley Smith Horticultural Trust is a private foundation that supports ornamental horticulture education and research projects. Funding has been primarily directed towards projects in North America, South America, Central America, the Caribbean, and Australia, with $635,000 awarded to 44 organizations in 2017. To learn more, visit smithht.org.

Adkins Arboretum is a 400-acre native garden and preserve at the headwaters of the Tuckahoe Creek in Caroline County. Open year round, the Arboretum offers educational programs for all ages about nature and gardening. For more information about programs, visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0.

“Tributary,” by Liz Donadio received first prize in Adkins Arboretum’s 20th annual Juried Art Show.

There’s mystery, beauty and food for thought in Discovering the Native Landscapes of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Adkins Arboretum’s 20^th annual Juried Art Show. On view in the Arboretum’s Visitor’s Center through March 30, this exhibit was juried by Julie Wills, Assistant Professor of Studio Art and Interim Director of the Kohl Gallery at Washington College. Both she and the artists will be on hand for a reception on Sat., Feb. 16 from 3 to 5 p.m. to talk with visitors about the work in the show.

From 135 entries submitted for this show, Wills chose 21 works that she felt offered an opportunity to consider not just the beauty of the Eastern Shore but also the ways we humans encounter and interact with the natural landscape.

“As it started to come together, I began seeing a more nuanced approach to landscape as a genre that goes beyond the idyllic or pastoral and acknowledges human occupation or mixed uses of landscape,” she explained.

The show has a fascinatingly wide range of work—from Takoma Park artist Joyce Jewell’s dreamy “Star Swept Sky,” with its splintery forest and row of shadowy barns, to the whirling animation of a pair of sculptures made of twigs and driftwood by Marcia Wolfson Ray of Baltimore. Including oil, watercolor and gouache paintings, there are also works made with a variety of photographic and printmaking techniques.

Wills awarded the annual first-prize Leon Andrus Award, named in honor of the Arboretum’s first benefactor, to Liz Donadio of Baltimore for her elegant digital print, “Tributary.” Second prize went to “St. Michaels Road at the Bypass: Easton Edit,” a combination drawing and photograph by Joe Minarick of Easton, and Honorable Mention to Baltimore artist Karen Klinedinst for “Frozen Marsh,” a tiny, exquisitely detailed photographic print on vellum and silver leaf.

Wills was intrigued by how “Tributary” sensuously evokes watery movement and reflections while remaining largely abstract. Invitingly mysterious, the roots and stalks of a ghostly plant float amid amorphous shapes, creating a gentle dance in subtle shades of pink and gray that suggest both water and earth. Created outdoors in Rock Creek Park during a residency at VisArts in Rockville, it’s part of a series of lumen prints Donadio made by arranging plants, earth and water on photosensitive paper that she exposed to the sun and later scanned to produce digital prints.

Minarick’s work is also mysterious, but in a very different way. The photograph shows a quiet marsh, its water reflecting a pearly gray sky, but drawn in with bold strokes of black marker are two long, oval shapes inexplicably hovering in the grasses. It’s a surprising image that caught Wills’s attention.

“I particularly liked the sort of obstruction or obscuring of what would be the more classic view,” she said. “They’re blocking out who knows what—human occupation, ugly buildings, just more marsh—blocking in how things might get altered by human occupation. You don’t really know. I like that ambiguity about it.”

Most visitors come to Adkins Arboretum to enjoy and learn about its natural landscape, but with this exhibit, Wills saw an opportunity to expand on those experiences with artworks that present diverse ways of looking at the natural world.

“There are a lot of venues in the area for exhibiting gorgeous artworks,” she said, “but I felt a more interesting way of engaging with this particular space would be to consider the relationship between human occupation and nature, rather than simply presenting another view of what we can see outside.”

This show is part of Adkins Arboretum’s ongoing exhibition series of work on natural themes by regional artists. It is on view through March 30 at the Arboretum Visitor’s Center located at 12610 Eveland Rd. near Tuckahoe State Park in Ridgely. Contact the Arboretum at 410-634-2847, ext. 0 or info@adkinsarboretum.org for gallery hours.

Adkins Arboretum is a 400-acre native garden and preserve at the headwaters of the Tuckahoe Creek in Caroline County. Open year round, the Arboretum is the region’s resource for native plants and education programs about nature, ecology and wildlife conservation gardening. For more information, visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0.

Adkins Arboretum has announced the 2019 lineup for its popular Soup ’n Walk programs. Discover green plants in winter, early blooms and wildlife, ephemeral flowers, sure signs of spring, meadow grasses, fall color and plants that feed animals through winter. Following a guided walk through the Arboretum’s forest, meadows and wetland, enjoy a delicious and nutritious lunch along with a brief talk about nutrition. Copies of recipes are provided, and all gift shop purchases on these days receive a 20% discount. This year’s offerings include:

Winter Greens & Distinctive Bark
Sat., Feb. 16, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Look for green plants that seek the winter sun and trees with telltale bark. Plants of interest include mosses, cranefly orchid, magnolia and holly leaves, and the green stems of strawberry bush and greenbrier. Menu: red beet and cabbage soup, orange walnut bread with citrus, anadama bread with spinach dip, blueberry peach smoothies.

Early Blooms, Songbirds & Spring Frogs
Sat., March 16, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.
Listen for songbirds and spring frogs while searching for early purple, pink and white blooms. Plants of interest include skunk cabbage, paw paw, spring beauty and bloodroot. Menu: kale and chicken soup with lemon, sweet and tangy sauerkraut salad, wheat bread with raspberry jam, Black Forest cake with cherries.

Spring Ephemerals & Pollinators
Sat., April 20, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Look again! The blooms of ephemeral plants, trees and shrubs are here and gone in the blink of an eye. Look for pink white and yellow blooms and early pollinators. Plants of interest include pink spring beauty, may apple, dogwood, golden groundsel, spicebush, sassafras and white beech. Menu: carrot and ginger soup, black-eyed pea salad, ancient grain bread with jam, coconut almond cupcake.

Participants enjoy a themed guided walk followed by a hearty and delicious lunch.

Tuckahoe Creek & Beyond
Sat., May 18, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Observe the beautiful Tuckahoe Creek view and look for signs of beavers. Plants of interest include mountain laurel, beech, tulip tree, pink lady’s slipper, Solomon’s seal and may apple. Menu: kale, corn, black bean and parsnip soup, apple Waldorf salad, dill cottage cheese bread with apple butter, lemon apple tart bars.

Sunny Meadows, Bluebirds & Dragonflies
Sat., Sept. 21, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Walk the meadows in search of golden brown grasses and yellow and purple flowers while watching and listening for bluebirds and dragonflies. Plants of interest include milkweed, black-eyed Susan, goldenrod, Indian grass, big bluestem and sumac berries. Menu: minted cantaloupe soup, cauliflower, potatoes and peas Indian style, dill rye bread with cream cheese and jam, Pfefferneuse cookies.

Dazzling Fall Color

Sat., Oct. 19, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Fall colors dazzle the eye and pique the appetite. Listen for migrating birds and woodpeckers while watching for changing color on red and orange sweet gum, sassafras, tupelo, sumac, dogwood, yellow paw paw, hickory, beech and tulip trees. Menu: squash stew with beans and kale, potato salad with beets and carrots, double oat bread, pumpkin spice bars with lemon.

Nutritious Berries, Nuts & Seeds
Sat., Nov. 16, 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Enjoy the autumn harvest as we hunt for nutritious berries, nuts and seeds and check for signs of beaver. Plants of interest include dogwood, hibiscus, partridge berry, oak, loblolly pine, juniper, verbena, ironwood and strawberry bush. Menu: spicy sweet potato soup, broccoli carrot raisin salad, pumpernickel bread, yellow cake with apple cranberry sauce.

Soup ’n Walk programs are $25 for members and $30 for non-members. Early registration is recommended. Visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0 to register or for more information.

Adkins Arboretum is a 400-acre native garden and preserve at the headwaters of the Tuckahoe Creek in Caroline County. Open year round, the Arboretum is the region’s resource for native plants and education programs about nature, ecology and wildlife conservation gardening. For more information, visit adkinsarboretum.org or call 410-634-2847, ext. 0.