Spring is just around the corner, and you know what that means? SOU’s celebratory Arbor Day! Arbor day is a day where people are encouraged to plant and conserve trees. Since SOU is a tree campus, we will definitely be partaking! SOU Landscape is in charge of Arbor Day and they have lots of fun events planned from 9 am to 5 pm on Friday, April 14th, including a large planting of over 6000 plants throughout campus and along Raider Way. Keep an eye out at the beginning of spring term for volunteer sign ups!

If you’re interested in botany and our school’s botanical biodiversity, make sure to check out the arboretum and the new botanical tour, debuting on Arbor day! The botanical tour will be led by Mike Oxendine, and he will give a personal tour of the more than 100 marked trees on campus! There are more than 300 types of trees at SOU, and many are still being identified.

If you can’t make it out on Arbor Day, fear not! The botanical tour will be up and running as a virtual tour within a few weeks! Each plaque has a QR code. Scan it, and it will bring you right to Landscape’s page on Inside SOU and give you information about the species and location of the tree! It will also eventually include a tour of our pollinator beds, mushroom species, medicinal herbs, and our very own arboretum in Roca Canyon! The Siskiyou Arboretum has 70 different native species in it, and will be a part of the botanical tour and will also have its own tour set up, so keep an eye out for that!

We can’t wait to see you out and about on Arbor Day and throughout Spring term!

Check out the Landscaping website for the full list of Arbor Day events!

https://inside.sou.edu/fmp/landscape.html