Educational things to do at the Lake Wilderness Arboretum
Tribal Life Trail
The Tribal Life Trail is a trail-style demonstration garden that focuses on plants used by native peoples of the Puget Sound area. Food, medicine, utility, clothing, and ceremonial uses are the gifts these plants provided. Walk along the trail and learn about the relationship between native plants and native people.
Little Free Library
Little Free Library is a nonprofit organization that inspires a love of reading, builds community, and sparks creativity by fostering neighborhood book exchanges around the world.
The Lake Wilderness Arboretum is home to two Little Free Libraries. Find one hiding in a tree in the Legacy Garden and another in the Children’s Discovery Forest with books just for kids.
StoryWalk®
A new way to read a book. Take a walk along the Main Looping Trail (along the backside of the Children’s Discovery Forest) and find signs with the pages from a children’s book. Come back every month as a new book is featured each month.
Educating our visitors, no matter their age
The Lake Wilderness Arboretum educates our community in a number of ways.
Outdoor preschool: The Arboretum has been the home of an outdoor preschool for many years
Outdoor classroom: The Arboretum and the Plant Science classes at Tahoma High School have worked together for many years.
Camps for kids: During the summer, the Arboretum hosts a variety of summer camps for kids of all ages.
Community service location: Many high school students have completed volunteer hours at the Arboretum over the years and the Arboretum is in a better place because of their help.
Student Transition Program: The Arboretum has worked with the Student Transition Program at Tahoma High School to provide a job training site for its participants.
Eagle Scout Service Projects: The Arboretum has been fortunate to benefit from local Eagle Scout candidates. For more information about possible projects, please email: info@lakewildernessarboretum.org
Field trips: Over the years the Arboretum has hosted students of every age for field trips.
Lectures, Workshops & Classes: The Lake Wilderness Arboretum Foundation works to create programs that will help educate, inspire and connect our community to nature. For information on upcoming programs, check our events page on Facebook or sign up for our monthly email newsletter.
Guided Tours: Explore the gardens with a free 1-hour guided tour that will highlight different plants and gardens each season as well as interesting information about the Arboretum and its history. For information about these quarterly tours, please check our events page on Facebook.
Great websites for learning more about gardening
- Smithsonian Gardens – Let’s Talk Gardens – free webinars & access to past webinars (gardens.si.edu)
- WSU Extension Hortsense – a compilation of fact sheets for managing common landscape and garden plant problems (hortsense.cahnrs.wsu.edu)
- Northwest Perennial Alliance (northwestperennialalliance.org)
- Plant Amnesty – great YouTube videos about pruning (plantamnesty.org)
- Great Plant Picks – information on exceptional plants for the PNW (greatplantpicks.org)
- Native Plants NW – an encyclopedia of the cultural and and natural history of Northwest native plants (nativeplantsNW.com)