How important are volunteers to the tireless efforts to maintain the Ambler Arboretum as the living laboratory for our students, the showplace for environmental responsibility for our researchers and destination for connecting with nature for our visitors?

After the thousands of hours dedicated volunteers give to the Arboretum each year, it's a simple question for Ambler Arboretum Director Kathy Salisbury to answer.

"We have a small but powerful staff here that accomplish a lot, but with 187 acres of gardens to maintain, we need whatever help we can get. That help comes from student gardeners that we hire and also our volunteers," she said. "Most of their volunteer hours are spent in the Arboretum helping us with the general day-to-day garden tasks, whether that's creating new garden spaces and planting them or maintaining existing garden spaces, pulling weeds, raking and mulching in all weather."

At Ambler in Bloom, the Arboretum's annual garden party fundraiser, "we aim to celebrate all of the time and talent, expertise, knowledge and muscle power that our volunteers have put into the Arboretum over the years," said Salisbury. Ambler in Bloom will be held on Saturday, October 5, from 3 to 7 p.m.

"The goal of Ambler in Bloom is to raise funds to support the mission of the Ambler Arboretum, that in turn helps us continue to grow," she said. "We have two themes for the event this year — a horticultural theme and an honoring our volunteers theme."

The botanical theme, Salisbury said "is our Hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), one of which we just planted this year in the garden."

"The Hackberry isn't really showy but offers a lot of power in the garden. It's similar to our volunteers where they're behind the scenes, but they do so much," she said. "The hackberry is the same. It's very important for wildlife — we are a habitat. Our volunteers help to create and maintain that habitat, so it all ties together."

Volunteers are an essential part of the Ambler Arboretum, Salisbury said.

"We would not have the gardens we have, and they wouldn't look the way they do if it weren't for our volunteers. They're out here helping us almost every day," she said. "In the in the past year, we continue to recover from the tornado that hit us in 2021. That really is our primary focus whether that is reestablishing gardens that were damaged in the storm, replanting or reimagining gardens in new spaces or just replenishing the trees that were here before the storm."

According to Salisbury, hundreds of trees have been planted this year alone "all of which require constant care until they are established."

"We've also added some new garden spaces around the Arboretum, including the Peace Garden, which was built in conjunction with the Women's National Farm and Garden Association, founded here back in 1914. It is a way to celebrate our history, our collaboration and our partnership with that organization," she said. "We also have our new food forest at the location of the former Cottage Hall. The garden is a way for us to teach about sustainable food systems and a different way of thinking about what you eat and where you can grow what you eat."

Join the Adventure at Ambler in Bloom

Guests at Ambler in Bloom will have the opportunity to enjoy live jazz by Nawja Parkins; botanical cocktails from Philadelphia Distilling; "oystertainment" by Red Oyster; firsthand falconry with Courtney Douds and Raptor Jawns; hyper-local honey from 4 Brothers Honey; an immersive tea experience with John Smagula, Assistant Dean of the Temple University Beasley School of Law; moss art and biophilic design with Kate Shooltz; the bonsai mastery of Michael Persiano and more!

Just like Ambler Arboretum volunteers work hands-on in the gardens, "experiencing all the senses while they're here," Ambler in Bloom guests will be given similar opportunities "to be engaged with their senses while they are here," said Salisbury.

"It won't be in just the traditional ways you might think of in the gardens by smelling flowers or looking at the beautiful garden designs," she said. "You'll be able to taste different types of honey and watch a bonsai master at work. We will have a falconer who will talk about the raptors and the wildlife that lives here."

4 Brothers Honey will be offering honey "from all of our locations from springtime and summertime — that's about 14 different honeys to taste," said Sarah Humes, President of 4 Brothers Honey.  

"We will also bring our bees so that everybody can see the work that they do. Additionally, we're going to be speaking about honeybee removal," she said. "It's natural for honeybees to swarm and when they do that, they look for a cavity or a void to build their new home — in the best-case scenario, that's a hollow tree and in the worst-case scenario it's someone's house. We take those bees and then we rescue and rehome them."

According to Michael Persiano, he became interested in bonsai when he began his PhD in forest genetics and ecology.

"I quickly accelerated my studies of classical masterpieces and created many trees. In 1996, I submitted a photograph of my bonsai display to Country Living Gardener magazine hoping they might include it in the back of the magazine under reader submissions — to my surprise I received a phone call from the editor of the magazine who said they would like to visit and take some photos," he said. "They ended up making my work the feature article — the magazine reached over one million readers and the rest is history. I was the most published bonsai artist for more than two decades and conducted workshops, lectures, and demonstrations across the US, Canada, Europe and Australia." 

At Ambler in Bloom, Persiano will be showing a bonsai demonstration with a Black Pine Mikawa that he acquired 30 years ago.=

"I am an advocate of horticulture practices and creating beauty through an understanding of how nature and, in this instance, potted trees can be transformed into living art," he said. "Sharing the experience of creating a bonsai moves many individuals to seek a closer relationship with the natural world. Temple's initiative to bring together various masters and craftsmen motivates individuals to deepen their life experiences and to continue endless learning."

Learn more about Ambler in Bloom's many adventurous activities at ambler.temple.edu/bloom.

According to Salisbury, every In Bloom guest will be able to become a volunteer in the Arboretum by helping to plant a bulb display. Ambler In Bloom will also include the very popular annual silent and live auctions. 

"The auctions feature a wide range of items from businesses from around the region; anything from lift tickets to a ski resort to bottles of wine to homemade jewelry by some of the talented artisans in our area," she said. "One of the most popular parts of our auctions are the unique plants we get donated. We will again have and a wide variety of plants at this auction."

Funds raised at Ambler in Bloom, Salisbury said, are used in the Arboretum to help support the ongoing maintenance and upkeep of the various gardens "and help with installing new garden spaces and reimagining new spaces."

You Can Lend a Hand in the Arboretum

Individuals interested in becoming an Ambler Arboretum volunteer are asked to fill out the online volunteer form. There are ample opportunities to get involved. Learn more about volunteering. Find all the ways to help by visiting the Ambler Arboretum's "How You Can Help" webpage.

"Our volunteers range from Temple students to residents in the community to students from other colleges. We have various collaborations," said Salisbury. "We work with Weavers Way as a community partner, for example, and Gwynedd Mercy University partners with us to send their students to the Arboretum to volunteer each spring."

Among the community volunteers, Salisbury said, some may come for a single event or planting, "but we have dozens of volunteers who come back on a regular basis."

"They complement and expand what we can do in the gardens," she said. "If it weren't for the volunteers, there are many tasks that we would not be able to accomplish."

The Ambler Arboretum as Part of the Temple Tapestry

As a public botanical garden, the Arboretum connects Temple faculty and students while also  connecting Temple with the community as a whole, said Salisbury.

"As an outdoor classroom and an educational support facility, we want to make sure that our gardens continue to be relevant and safe and useful by our faculty, staff and students. The Ambler Arboretum is Temple University's outdoor classroom, living laboratory and public botanical garden," she said. "As such it provides a unique space that isn't replicated anywhere else throughout the university for people to learn, whether that's learning about plants or landscape architecture or painting or engineering or architecture. There are opportunities for students to learn in the gardens taking part in hands-on experiential learning and our researchers from throughout the University also have an opportunity within our 187 acres to study a wide variety of topics."

The Arboretum is "managed using sustainable techniques so we can model that for the community, for the students, faculty and researchers," Salisbury said.  

"We've had this more than 100-year tradition of hands-on, experiential learning opportunities and we plan to continue that. We are available to be used by anyone at the University — if you can imagine a way that the garden can be useful you can do it here," she said. "I hope our faculty and staff find a valuable resource and that our visitors leave with more knowledge than they walked in with inspired to try something they had never considered before. I hope they leave thinking about us as a resource knowing they can come back and ask questions; they can learn from us and that they've built a connection with us."

Learn more about the Ambler Arboretum at https://arboretum.temple.edu.