News Stories
November 10, 2022
The Jesse Owens oak at Rhodes High School may have died, but its legacy lives on through grafting
By Peter Krouse , Cleveland.com
When Jesse Owens returned from his triumphal performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, in which he deflated Adolph Hitler’s claims of Aryan superiority, the Cleveland native brought back four oak saplings, one for each of the gold medals he won in track and field. The trees were gifts of the German Olympic Committee, which presented oaks to all the Games’ gold medal winners.
Read more
November 4, 2022
Which plants live where? Follow the ants to find out
No man is an island — and the same goes for organisms living in the natural world. It might seem like a plant growing on the forest floor is operating on its own, but it’s not: the other plants, fungi, insects and more that interact with it on a day-to-day basis decide its fate. This interconnectedness is why studying ecology is so interesting: everything exists in a complicated web of interactions. Change one thing, and the effects ripple all throughout the web.
Read more
October 18, 2022
A new Jesse Owens tree takes root at Old Brooklyn’s Rhodes High School
By Karin Connelly Rice, Fresh Water Cleveland Reporter
Olympic athlete Jesse Owens’ Cleveland legacy was preserved on Wednesday, Oct. 12, when representatives with Holden Forests & Gardens gathered at James Ford Rhodes High School to plant a cloned Jesse Owens oak tree sapling.
Read more
August 29, 2022
Core Natural Areas Recent History
One of the many reasons HF&G is unique is that one membership affords a matrix of high quality natural and cultivated landscape experiences across multiple campuses. These experiences are the product of time, geologic conditions, evolutionary biology and the foresight of our founders to preserve them. They are held to integrity through planned land management conducted by our boots-on-the ground team of conservationists, horticulturists and scientists in their respective departments.
Read more
August 24, 2022
A Prickly Foe
By Lorinda Laughlin, Gardener
I’ve learned many things working as a Gardener here at the Arboretum, particularly regarding the importance of promoting and maintaining biodiversity. Much of what I’ve learned I have tried to apply at home, like removing garlic mustard from my property and choosing only native trees to add to my yard. But I must admit, those are easy things to do, and some of the more challenging tasks that I take on at work I have ignored doing at home.
Read more
June 17, 2022
Holden Forests & Gardens Announces Appointment of Five New Board Members to its Board of Directors
Holden Forests & Gardens is pleased to announce the appointment of five new members to its Board of Directors: Tera Coleman, Lavita Ewing, Lynn-Ann Gries, Katie Outcalt and Joy Ward.
Read moreFebruary 3, 2022
Science on Fridays with Holden: Roadmaps to building equitable and inclusive research experiences in STEM
By Juliana S. Medeiros, PhD, Plant Biologist
What can we do to create more equitable and inclusive STEM educational systems? This year, the Scientist Lecture Series is featuring speakers that have successfully run boots-on-the-ground institutional diversity initiatives. These leaders have strong records of advocacy and are employing innovative ideas to build anti-racist/anti-sexist programs, truly they are changing the system in support of a more diverse STEM workforce.
Read more
January 20, 2022
Get to know a scientist: Samuel Harbol
This week we learn more about Samuel Harbol, this year’s Norweb Fellow working in Dr. Juliana Medeiros’ lab. This one-year research fellowship is named in honor of R. Henry Norweb Jr., the first executive director of Holden Arboretum and grandson of Holden’s founder Albert Fairchild Holden.
Read more
December 10, 2021
Science on Fridays with Holden: Roadmaps to building equitable and inclusive research experiences in STEM
By Juliana S. Medeiros, PhD, Plant Biologist
What can we do to create more equitable and inclusive STEM educational systems? This year, the Scientist Lecture Series is featuring speakers that have successfully run boots-on-the-ground institutional diversity initiatives. These leaders have strong records of advocacy and are employing innovative ideas to build anti-racist/anti-sexist programs, truly they are changing the system in support of a more diverse STEM workforce.
Read more
December 2, 2021
Healthy Soils have a Healthy Dose of Decomposition: Celebrating World Soil Day
By Sarah Kyker, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Associate
December 5th marks World Soil Day. World Soil Day began in 2014, initiated by the United Nations, to focus attention on the importance of soil health. But what exactly is healthy soil? The soil ecology lab at Holden Forests & Gardens asks this question each and every day.
Read more
November 12, 2021
Science on Fridays: Roadmaps to building equitable & inclusive research experiences in STEM
What can we do to create more equitable and inclusive STEM educational systems? This year, the Scientist Lecture Series will feature speakers that have successfully run boots-on-the-ground institutional diversity initiatives. These leaders have strong records of advocacy and are employing innovative ideas to build anti-racist/anti-sexist programs, truly they are changing the system in support of a more diverse STEM workforce.
Read more
October 22, 2021
Great scientists are made, not born
By Juliana S. Medeiros, PhD, Plant Biologist
We’ve all heard the story; a famous scientist is asked how they got interested in their subject area and they say something like “I’ve always loved sea otters and wanted to be a marine biologist ever since I was a little boy”. This common storyline is part of why scientific skills are viewed as inherent, people either ARE scientists, or they ARE NOT.
Read more
October 13, 2021
A Conversation with Illustrator Julia Kuo
By Kristen Hampshire
Connecting people to the natural world is a passion project for Julia Kuo, a Taiwanese-American children’s book and editorial illustrator whose work will complement Holden Forests & Gardens’ People for Trees, a regional movement to reverse the trend of tree loss in Northeast Ohio by encouraging residents to plant and care for a tree on their properties.
Kuo is developing visual representations for the campaign, including a logo and a poster initiative that brings to life the benefits of trees and how to care for them. Here, Kuo share her inspiration for the project.
September 13, 2021
Fall Community Tree Plantings
plant 20 trees at Carver Park, part of a project to add 75 new trees to three public housing estates on Cleveland’s East Side over the next 18 months. As part of this project, we’ll train public housing residents who are part of CMHA’s Green Team to plant and care for trees at these properties, which will provide them with supplemental income and perhaps inspire some of them to pursue careers in tree care. Our Community Forestry Team is also helping plant an additional 20 trees within Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park. Additionally, in MidTown, Old Brooklyn, Central-Kinsman, and Detroit Shoreway-Cudell neighborhoods of Cleveland, we are working with local community development organizations to plant street trees, give away trees for planting in residential yards, and hold tree care classes. Generous support for these projects has been provided by Cuyahoga County’s Healthy Urban Tree Canopy grant program and The Cleveland Foundation.
Read more
September 10, 2021
Science on Friday: Soil, Mushrooms & a Recipe, Too!
By Claudia Bashian-Victoroff, MS, Research Specialist
We continue to celebrate September: National Mushroom Month. Mushrooms are amazing (and delicious) and definitely deserve a month of focus and celebration. Today we’ll take a look at how soil and mushrooms interact and support each other.
Read more
September 8, 2021
Breaking News: Pollinators contribute to flowering plant diversity
Holden Forests & Gardens (HF&G) Scientist Na Wei, Ph.D., and her collaborators from the University of Pittsburgh and East Tennessee State University discovered how pollinators may contribute to the maintenance of flowering plant diversity. This study that accelerates our understanding of biodiversity conservation is now published in the journal Nature.
Read more
September 3, 2021
Science on Friday – A Book About Mushrooms & a Recipe
By Claudia Bashian-Victoroff, MS, Research Specialist
With summer turning into autumn, September is a great time of year to see mushrooms in the forest. Mushrooms are a type of sporocarp, or the fruiting body of fungi, and the month of September offers just the right temperature and soil moisture for fungi to fruit. We love the beauty of the forest floor filled with sporocarps during September; it’s a great time of year for a mushroom foray! “What is a mushroom foray?” you might ask. It is an organized hike where a group of people head into the forest and look for mushrooms. Sometimes the group is organized to hunt for edible mushrooms; other times it is for a scientific study; and sometimes it is just to enjoy the beauty of the mushrooms! You can join us for a foray at Holden Arboretum on September 18th! The purpose of our foray will be to learn about Ohio’s native mushrooms and how to identify them and will be led by Claudia Bashian-Victoroff (register here). We hope you can join us for a fun morning!
Read more
April 21, 2021
HF&G Celebrates International Day of Forests
By Rachel Kappler, Forest Health Coordinator
March 21st is not only the spring solstice but also International Day of Forests, a day of awareness and celebration of our forests started by the United Nations General Assembly. This year’s theme is, “Forest Restoration, a path to recovery and well-being”. You can read more here.
Read more
April 20, 2021
Behind-the-Scenes Look at Storm Damage Recovery Work
By Rick Anielski, Arborist
I think we can all say that the storm we experienced back in early December is still weighing heavy on our minds, especially since the damage it caused is still quite evident. The beautiful trails are littered with debris and trees lay broken or completely uprooted. Unfortunately, we have seen quite a few trees that were too far gone for help. There are many, though, that can be saved and have required us to contract out the work due to the scope of the project. However, there are some trees we are able to help recover ourselves. I found such a one in the slow growing Conifer Collection. The fifty foot Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) was damaged from high winds and heavy snow loading which caused many of the branches to reach their breaking point. It seemed that no part of the tree was spared as there was damage from the base of the tree to almost the very top. We knew about the damage soon after the storm had ended, but we wanted to make sure we properly assessed the damage to all the affected trees. After a lot of work in other collections throughout the Arboretum, I was finally able to make it out to this specific tree. Luckily, I had a nice day for the work. With the sun shining, I was able to finally go aloft and work on giving this tree a second chance.
Read more
February 3, 2021
Cleveland Botanical Garden to Open 15th Annual Flower Show Orchids Forever
Test
Read more
