Washington Park Arboretum

Native Tapestry

A tapestry of native trees will weave in and out of the forest formations and the other collection exhibits. In some cases it will serve only as overstory or background for non-native specimens, and in other cases will be underplanted with native shrubs and groundcovers in order to simulate various Pacific Northwest plant associations. At times, this will require alterations to the species compostion of the native canopy to accomplish the latter. Data gathered under a recent conservation grant helped determine which areas of the extant native forest will be augmented to better represent native plant associations. We envision that a matrix of managed native forest, representing several succesional stages, will be a permanent fixture of the Arboretum.