Blog

The Garden Railway train shed "tent" to be replaced with a design inspired by historic Chestnut Hill train station.

Call it a passion, a service, or a fever—our Archive volunteers' often routine, sometimes remarkable work ties the Morris’s past to the present to the future. 

Vince Marrocco, the Gayle E. Maloney Director of Horticulture at the Morris Arboretum & Garden, spoke with Penn Today about vibrant early blooms that defy the cold.

The American beech tree (Fagus grandifolia) that stood proudly in the meadow next to the metal sheep along the entrance drive has a storied past and a new future. 

Morris Arboretum & Gardens Urban Forestry Consulting team helps manage the approximately 6,500 trees on the University of Pennsylvania campus, including the Penn Treaty Elm which requires a plethora of strategies to protect and maintain its biological health and structural stability. One feature of its defensive gauntlet is a lightning protection system, and the Morris has developed a sturdier, adjustable, more sustainable system dubbed the Morris Lightning Protection Attachment.

This summer, Compton Horticulturist Jen Monico traveled to Sweden and Denmark where she visited gardens and private estates to learn more about garden design and management.

Audio artist Richard Hamilton debuted his 24-minute soundscape piece, Auscultation Points, at the Morris during a workshop in June 2024. His piece, a combination of sounds recorded from across the Morris, encourages you to immerse yourself in nature.

This past June, Matt Walker, the Martha S. Miller and Rusty Miller Urban Forestry Fellow, attended the Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s (SFI) annual conference in Atlanta as a youth delegate.