Auburn's Arboretum Serves as a Backyard Lab

Originally affiliated with Auburn University’s school of forestry and wildlife sciences, the Arboretum went to the college of sciences and mathematics (COSAM) when the botany program switched schools. Donald E. Davis Arboretum has been a place of learning and relaxation for students for over fifty years, although not named after the botany professor until 1983.

"Horticulture students study here," said Hunter Sims, an Arboretum employee and former Auburn horticulture student. "Labs meet here."

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The Arboretum is open to the public as well. It has a special program for children one Saturday a month and also offers tours the second Friday and Wednesday of every month, except during winter.

Dee Smith, head curator at the Arboretum, said that the guides, or "master garden docents," as they are called there, take classes to become knowledgeable of the landscape's ecology before they are able to give tours.

Every year around Earth Day, the Arboretum hosts Earthfest, a mini-music festival with local musicians. This year Earthfest, which will be held on Saturday, April 10, will mark the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. While the university’s environmental awareness organization, or EAO, puts on the event and is responsible for selecting the bands, the Arboretum staff contributes by setting up stages and painting bed sheets for backdrops. For the past couple of years, the staff has even designed the fliers for the festival and helped distribute them around town.

“We don’t hand out individual fliers,” Sims said. “We try to be greener than that.”

More than 500 different plant species inhabit the property, but diversity doesn't end with the Arboretum’s vegetation. Employees at the Arboretum enjoy this variety as well.

"I never know what's going to happen when I come here," Sims said when asked about his favorite part of working there.

Although some species such as the Chinese Elm have made their home in the Arboretum, the majority of plants displayed there are found throughout Alabama and the surrounding states. The Arboretum staff hopes to familiarize visitors with plants they will probably come across in the Southeast.

“Get to know your state,” said Sims.

To ensure that local species are the focus, sometimes staff members will even collect plants and transport them back to the Arboretum. Some of the native azaleas located in the Arboretum were personally transplanted by Sims.

The Arboretum also displays a chair made out of a tree that fell during a hurricane and a man-made waterfall that Sims helped create.