Secrest Arboretum’s Fall Plant Sale Is Saturday

Writer(s): 

WOOSTER, Ohio — Fall’s a great time for planting, says Paul Snyder, who has dozens of eager, leafy friends in need of a home in the ground.

Snyder is a program assistant at Secrest Arboretum in Wooster, which is holding its annual Autumn Discovery Day this Saturday, Oct. 3. The event is a tree and shrub sale by the Friends of Secrest Arboretum, the facility’s volunteer support group.

“The cooler temperatures allow a plant to put its energy into growing roots instead of growing stem tissue before going fully dormant,” Snyder said. “You can plant until the ground freezes, especially with containerized plants, but ideally from now until the beginning of November.

“When planting in the fall, however, I recommend mulching around the plant with wood chips to keep it from being pushed out of the ground due to the freeze-thaw cycle in winter.”

Great Ball O’ Fire and others

A list of the 80 different plant types in the sale is at go.osu.edu/2015AutumnDiscovery. The list has a number of new or unusual varieties, including:

  • Ball O’ Fire hornbeam, a globe-shaped selection of native American hornbeam with red fall color.
  • Little Goblin winterberry, a new dwarf winterberry — a deciduous holly — with showy red fruit.
  • Tupelo Tower blackgum, an upright-growing blackgum, or black tupelo.
  • Red Dragon filbert, a red-leafed, contorted filbert, or hazelnut tree.

“Three of those don’t even exist in (the arboretum’s) collections yet,” Snyder said.

Japanese maples and more

The list also includes, among others, three kinds of Japanese maples, four types of eastern redbuds, seven hydrangea varieties, and names such as Jordan Street oak, fragrant abelia, Carolina silverbell and Sugar Shack buttonbush.

The 115-acre arboretum is at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center. The center is the research arm of the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.

Admission to the sale is free and open to the public. Hours are 9 a.m. to noon. OARDC is at 1680 Madison Ave. in Wooster, but visitors should enter the campus off Secrest Road, which is just north of the Madison Avenue entrance, due to a construction detour. Detour signs are posted.

For more information, call 330-263-3761 or go to secrest.osu.edu

Writer(s): 
CFAES News Team
614-292-2270
For more information, contact: 

Paul Snyder
snyder.1062@osu.edu
330-263-3761