February 29, 2024

Don’t Be Over-elm-ed When Planting a Tree

By Amanda Wood, Urban Community Forester

Trees

Even though the weather is still trying to figure out what it wants, spring is around the corner which means trees will be putting out leaves soon! This means that... more

January 16, 2024

A Beginner’s Guide to Pruning

By Maggie Billings, Native Plant and Pollinator Specialist, AmeriCorps Member

Trees

Pruning is a must know when it comes to tree and garden care, but why? Pruning often rejuvenates plants and allows them to grow more efficiently. Taking off old growth... more

October 31, 2023

Protecting Your Broadleaf Evergreens from Frost Damage

By Nicholas Chilson, Garden Technician

Trees

The Eliot and Linda Paine Rhododendron Discovery Garden at the Holden Arboretum has many evergreen Rhododendrons and Azaleas. These plants, although winter hardy, are still susceptible to frost damage, and... more

April 25, 2025

Good News for Forests: Invasive Shrub Removal Gets Easier After Two Years of Work

By Anna Funk, PhD, Science Communications Specialist

Trees

KIRTLAND, OHIO — A new study from researchers at the Holden Arboretum offers encouraging news for forest managers battling non-native shrubs: the effort needed to control these invaders drops dramatically... more

November 8, 2024

Holden researchers put forest management strategies to the test. Here’s what they found

By Anna Funk, Science Communication Specialist

Other

Private landowners play a critical role in preserving Ohio’s natural heritage where a majority of the state’s eight million acres of forest are privately owned. To manage these forests, land... more

July 3, 2024

The Necessity of Scrub-Shrub and Young Forests

By Jessica Miller Mecaskey, Consulting Forester

Trees

Thick, tangled foliage. Stems teeming in the order of thousands per square meter. A seeming chaos of new growth. To a human, these places are an unnavigable mess of saplings... more

April 29, 2025

New Study Confirms Beech Leaf Disease Threatens European Beech Trees, Too

Trees

KIRTLAND, OHIO — A new study from Holden Forests & Gardens and a team at USDA Agricultural Research Service confirms that beech leaf disease—a fast-spreading disease already devastating American beech... more

April 28, 2025

A New Way to Detect Beech Leaf Disease: Rainwater Running Down Tree Trunks

Trees

KIRTLAND, OHIO — How do you detect a pathogen that lives way, way up in a tree’s canopy? A novel method for detecting beech leaf disease from the ground—using rainwater... more

April 23, 2025

Beech Leaf Disease-Causing Nematode More Widespread Than Visible Symptoms Suggest, New Study Finds

By Anna Funk, PhD, Science Communications Specialist

Trees

KIRTLAND, OHIO — Researchers at Holden Forests & Gardens have confirmed that the nematode responsible for beech leaf disease (BLD), Litylenchus crenatae ssp. mccannii, is present in forest stands across... more

January 23, 2024

Can inoculated soils promote healthy urban trees? Preliminary results

By Claudia Bashian-Victoroff, MS, Research Specialist

Trees

Preliminary results from a Holden research project testing soil inoculations for improvement of urban tree plantings. more

December 5, 2023

World Soil Day: Holden’s Soil Ecologists Improving the Odds for Trees in Urban Environments

Soils

Efforts are underway to plant trees in Cuyahoga County’s urban areas by the thousands. In these cities, canopy cover is well below the county average, which brings well-documented ill effects... more

September 26, 2023

A Story for the Ages Lives On: The Jesse Owens Olympic Oak Plaza Dedication 

Trees

On Monday, September 25th, the team at University Circle Inc. dedicated the Jesse Owens Olympic Oak Plaza in Rockefeller Park just north of the Wade Lagoon. Elected officials, community leaders,... more