North Carolina Arboretum

The North Carolina Arboretum is located in Asheville, North Carolina, and consists of 434 acres. We (Pupsy, Zoë) and I only explored a limited section of the grounds, but it was nonetheless a very pleasant visit. The Bonsai exhibit is not dog-friendly so we did not go in there, but we did walk multiple trails and studied many trees.

From wikipedia on Arboretums: An arboretum (pl.: arboreta) is a botanical collection composed exclusively of trees and shrubs of a variety of species. It is a living museum of trees and woody plants, grown and cared for by an organization committed to their stewardship. Originally mostly created as a section in a larger garden or park for specimens of mostly non-local species, many modern arboreta are in botanical gardens as living collections of woody plants and are intended at least in part for scientific study.

From the North Carolina Arboretum website: “For 40 years…Cultivating Connections between People, Plants and Places…amid a 434-acre public garden, The North Carolina Arboretum is located within the Bent Creek Experimental Forest just south of Asheville and adjacent to the Blue Ridge Parkway at Milepost 393. Surrounded and crisscrossed by forested coves and meandering creeks in the botanically diverse Southern Appalachian Mountains, The North Carolina Arboretum is set in one of the most beautiful natural settings in America.

The Arboretum was established as an affiliate of the University of North Carolina System by the State General Assembly in 1986, nearly a century after Frederick law Olmsted, the Father of American Landscape Architecture, first envisioned a research arboretum as part of his legacy and plan for George Vanderbilt at Biltmore Estate.” https://www.ncarboretum.org/about-us/