The Forest Park Arboretum in Springfield has been awarded a Level II Accreditation by The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program and The Morton Arboretum, for achieving particular standards of professional practices deemed important for arboreta and botanic gardens. The ArbNet Arboretum Accreditation Program is the only global initiative to officially recognize arboreta at various levels of development, capacity, and professionalism.

The Forest Park Arboretum is also now recognized as an accredited arboretum in the Morton Register of Arboreta, a database of the world’s arboreta and gardens dedicated to woody plants.

Over the past two years, ReGreen Springfield, in partnership with the Springfield Parks Department and the USDA Forest Service, has spearheaded the effort to create the Forest Park Arboretum, building upon the rich botanic collection and horticultural features of the Park.  Working with volunteer community ‘Arboretum Assistants’ over 400 trees have been catalogued and mapped, and identification tags have been placed on nearly 225 trees.  It is hoped that all the trees will be tagged by end of October.  Volunteers are needed for this effort, if this is something that might be interest to you.

Also, the Arboretum will be announcing a series of community events, taking place in over the next few months. These will include educational talks, tours and tree identification sessions.  Please look for details coming soon. Please visit www.regreenspringfield.org/fparboretum to learn more about the newly designated Forest Park Arboretum and to keep up with the latest news.