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Hoyt Arboretum is a public park in Portland, Oregon, which is part of the complex of parks collectively known as Washington Park. The arboretum is located atop a ridge in the Tualatin Mountains west of downtown Portland. Hoyt has 12 miles of Hiking, two miles of accessibility paved trails, and is open free to the public all year. About 350,000 visitors per year visit the arboretum.
After the Poor Farm closed, in 1922 Multnomah County sold the land to the City of Portland, which created Hoyt Arboretum in 1930. The city commissioned John W. Duncan, superintendent of parks for Spokane, Washington, to design a plan for the new arboretum. He completed the plan in 1930, and included locations for nearly forty families of trees planted in a naturalistic landscape. Works Progress Administration crews cleared the forest and built the roads and paths winding through the arboretum in 1930 and 1931, although some native trees that had grown in the wake of the 1889 fire were left in place. The arboretum was planted according to Duncan's plan from 1931 to 1944. Many trees needed to be replaced after the Columbus Day Storm of 1962.
Hoyt Arboretum was founded to conserve endangered species and educate the community. The property has increased in size through additional donations and acquisitions to (62 Hectare).
The arboretum has one of the most extensive conifer collections in the United States. The conifer collection includes a Metasequoia, one of only a few known deciduous conifers (needle and cone bearing trees that lose their leaves in the winter). The species was once thought extinct and known only in fossils, but was rediscovered in a remote valley in Hubei province, China in 1944. The species was reintroduced to the western hemisphere in 1948, with the Hoyt Arboretum as one of the first recipients. In the fall of 1952, the Hoyt arboretum's dawn redwood became the first in the Western Hemisphere to produce cones in about 6 million years.
The arboretum contains a nationally recognized magnolia collection, recognized as an official participating site in the North American Plant Collections Consortium.
Hoyt's winter landscape shows interesting colors, textures and shapes, and winter blooms of , , and .
In 2016, the arboretum opened their Bamboo Forest featuring 30 species of bamboo.
The visitor center is located at the center of the park and contains a small nature center and research library where visitors can find information about the park and its trees; the visitor center is also the starting point for periodic volunteer-guided tours. The research library has over 800 books ranging from technical floras to beginner gardening books, and is accessible to the public.
The Stevens Pavilion is a covered A-frame picnic shelter with wooden beams and stone floors, nestled in a grove of Douglas-fir trees.
Features
The arboretum has of trails (two miles (3 km) of which are wheelchair accessible), marked with over 250 trail signs and interpretive panels. The Wildwood Trail which leads north to Forest Park and the Marquam Trail which leads south to Marquam Nature Park meet in the arboretum; both trails are segments of the Portland area's 40-Mile Loop trail network.
Public art
Gallery
See also
External links
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