Ground Cover December 2014 [Winter Edition] | Page 5

How can anyone live in the Midwest in the autumn and not love the trees! The fall season has much
more to offer than russet maples and golden oaks.
DABG volunteer, Operations Board member and Planning Committee member Dennis Hermsen hosted our first Fall
Tree Walk. He is one of our area’s foremost tree experts, having devoted most of his life to growing plants and trees.
His enthusiasm is absolutely contagious.
Hardy hikers met in early October to glean insights and inspiration from our first Fall Tree Walk “classroom.” On the
afternoon of the 5th, Dennis highlighted the rare and unusual trees of the Dubuque Arboretum and Botanical Gardens
in their full splendor. Much of the tree walk was spent in the park’s “Secret Garden,” a hideaway collection of rare and
unusual conifers. Walkers were introduced to dwarfs, conifers and deciduous trees.
Walkers learned about “witches brooms” and “root flares.” Many good questions were posed and answered. Do you
have answers to these inquiries? “Are all coniferous trees evergreens?” “What is the only fir tree native to Iowa?”
“What kind of pine is the oldest on the planet?” “What tree smells like cinnamon in the autumn?” “What tree has a
candy-striped trunk in the winter?”
If you’d like to learn more about the trees of the arboretum, plans are already being made
for a Spring Tree Walk. Plan to stroll through the arboretum to touch, smell and see trees like
you never have before.
Submitted by Susan L. Lemon

Project Update

Now that it feels like winter outside, we are so thankful
to have everything changed over to natural gas from the
previously more expensive propane. This could not have
been accomplished without our partners: the Dubuque Racing
Association, Black Hills Energy, and All Seasons Heating and
Cooling. Thank you!
Also, the DABG is getting ready to host the Midwest Hosta
Convention in 2015. To try and spruce things up, we added a
new Western Cedar fence and removed some of the arborvitae
that had become overgrown, causing the hosta area to have a
lack of sunlight for optimal growth.

A hill near the Japanese Garden parking lot had serious erosion
issues. Some say you could hide a body in some of the holes!
The DABG thanks Thurn Seeding and Drew Cook for their in-kind services to help take care of the problem. We also want
to thank all the volunteers who gathered and raked straw and put down the moisture-retarding webbing.
Submitted by Wylie Bledsoe

5