The welcomed an addition this spring: two bee hives in an apiary on the south side of the Center for Urban Horticulture. The new hives are tended by , a program manager at the 91����’s Continuum College who, together with 91���� Farm manager , re-launched the farm’s beekeeping program in early 2023.��

Sahl is a volunteer beekeeper for now, observing the bees and preparing the hives for cooler weather. In the coming school year, he hopes to instruct students interested in bee science, sharing his deep interest in the role they play in the natural world.

On a Friday in August, Sahl gently applied smoke to calm a colony, then opened what looked like a stack of painted wood boxes to reveal layers of insect activity — each box designed for different manifestations of a bee’s work. The bottom boxes, called brood boxes, house the queen bee and provide a nursery for the eggs she lays and food for the larvae as they grow. The top boxes hold panels where bees create wax hexagons and fill them with honey. The panels provide easy access to the sweet comb built on the frame.��

Sahl harvested some honey early in the summer — a light colored honey made when bees were visiting blackberry blooms. The remaining honey will be left to feed the bees during the winter. Sahl checks the bees regularly for parasites; Varroa mites are one of the most serious threats to bee health.��

Acworth says people are curious about bees, and the hives will serve as a teaching tool for students who want to know more about agriculture and the function of pollinators in the ecosystem. Two courses where students will work with the bees are being offered this fall: Urban Farm Class 240 and a new ‘Soil to Seed to Snack’ Path to 91���� course.��

91���� Botanic Gardens manages the apiary, and bee-related farm programs are supported by the 91���� School of Public Health/Nutritional Sciences Program, 91���� College of the Environment, 91���� Housing and Food Services and individual donors.��

The welcomed an addition this spring: two bee hives in an apiary on the south side of the Center for Urban Horticulture. More:

— 91���� News (@uwnews)

Botanical gardens historically are exclusive spaces, but the 91���� is working to change that.

Many gardens originated as private spaces for predominantly white and wealthy individuals, said 91���� Botanic Gardens director . The collections were often curated through a process of stealing and renaming before the gardens were gifted as land to cities and universities.

“There’s a history of colonialism in many botanic gardens,” said Owen. “That is the bedrock on which we’re standing. Plants and collections that exist throughout the world were collected in ways that did not honor the people and did not honor the plants themselves. They’re driven by the colonial age. That’s a history that all gardens must grapple with.”

That’s the challenge for the , which includes both the Washington Park Arboretum and the Center for Urban Horticulture. When Owen was hired in July 2021, 91����BG already had an Equity and Justice Committee and was organizing an ongoing speaker series, , which explores how public gardens can evolve to meet the needs of local communities.

Owen is shifting the focus from bottom-up initiatives to work that is supported with and through leadership.

“Part of what we’re looking at is having regular updates with our leadership team,” Owen said, “and having the leadership team get more engaged in equity and social justice work and developing better onboarding. One of my big long-term goals is to see an increase in the diversity of staff. I think that starts with us and making sure that our culture is supportive for candidates of color and for employees of color.”

That is a major barrier for public gardens, according to a recently published by the , an initiative housed at Denver Botanic Gardens that helps public gardens become more accessible spaces. The upcoming report found that lack of institutional diversification could be addressed through adjustments to hiring processes and procedures.

“The other piece is the need for training and professional development,” said , director of the IDEA Center and a speaker in 91����BG’s New Directions series. “The way to support intuitional diversification is through training. The other part is organizational culture and leadership — the awareness that there needs to be an internal culture shift as a key step.

“There’s a lot of fear, a lack of buy-in or resistance to change. You can do all the training and all the changes you want, but it’s basically superficial unless there’s a culture change.”

A new direction

The New Directions speaker series started in May, with past guests addressing topics like engaging with local Indigenous populations, youth leadership development, job training programs and opportunities for public land to support urban food systems and engage with BIPOC communities.

Sean M. Watts, principal of SM Watts Consulting and co-founder of , will give the final talk on Sept. 20. Watts’ lecture will explore how public gardens can support the work to drive environmental and land use policy and help white-led organizations act on diversity, equity and inclusion.

“I think we’re learning a lot about the priorities of the communities that we want to connect with,” said adult education supervisor for 91����BG. “I’m realizing that if we’re going to build relationships, we need to be addressing the priorities of those communities.”

Plummer suggested ending the speaker series with a town hall, which is now scheduled for Sept. 21. The half-day, co-creative workshop will help create an action plan to address community challenges.

“We invite people from within the region,” said Plummer, who plans to use the town hall as a prototype, “and we start by saying, ‘What were some of the big things that really resonated from the lecture series? What do we want to change? Can we set some actions?’”

91����BG’s outreach will continue on October with the . This year’s event will focus on bridging the gap between tribal practices and local government. The Coast Salish people have been included in the planning.

“We’re going to be looking at Indigenous people’s access to and role in the management of the local urban forests,” Farmer said. “We’re looking at an identity shift for our organization, but we need to hear from others in the community and not have it be an insular conversation.”

Growing gardens

91����BG has collections from around the world. In the alone, visitors can view plants from Cascadia, Australia, China, Chile and New Zealand.

“It’s important to be intentional and thoughtful about these plants and places, how they’re collected and grown and the meaning to the people that are from there,” Owen said.

The history of how corrected were curated has factored into the explicit and implicit exclusion from botanical gardens, said Farmer. 91����BG is working to undo a perception of exclusivity by hosting programs like the speaker series and holding a summer camp that offers scholarships and is otherwise filled through a lottery system.

91����BG also launched . Each meeting is centered around a single topic — examples include the colonial past of botanical gardens, segregation in Seattle and problematic plant names — and Equity and Justice Committee members distribute resources and materials for staff to view before attending the discussion.

“It’s really helped establish some common goals and common identity around this work,” Farmer said. “Previously, some on our staff felt like diversity, equity and inclusion work was the role of our education and outreach team but didn’t see how it fit into their work with facilities or horticulture. It’s really helped the gardeners see how much of an ambassador they are to the public when they’re out on the grounds.”

For more information, contact Owen at crowen@uw.edu or Farmer at jsfarmer@uw.edu.

Olmstead in Seattle

November 12, 7 pm | Center for Urban Horticulture

Seattle has one of the most extensively developed Olmsted park systems in the United States, yet the story of how it came into existence has never been fully explored or described – until now, that is.

Olmsted in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Modern City, by Jennifer Ott, traces the story of how, in the midst of galloping growth at the turn of the twentieth century, Seattle’s city leaders seized on the confluence of a roaring economy with the City Beautiful movement to hire the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm. Their 1903 plan led to a supplemental plan, a playground plan, numerous park and boulevard designs, changes to park system management, and a ripple effect for the firm, as the Olmsted Brothers were subsequently hired to design public and private landscapes throughout the region.

Free with a suggested donation of $5��| More Info

Pilobolus: Come to Your Senses

November 14 – 16 | Meany Center

This “mind-blowing troupe of wildly creative and physically daring dancers” (NY Newsday) tests the limits of human physicality. Performing for 300,000+ people each year, Pilobolus has been honored with a TED Fellowship, a Grammy nomination, a Primetime Emmy Award and several Cannes Lion Awards. In their new show, Come to Your Senses, the company unravels the mystery of the origin of life, explores the beauty and strength of human connection, and celebrates our orientation in the biosphere.

Tickets are $61��|

$10 tickets for 91���� students when you show your Husky ID in advance at the��or on the night of the show at the Box Office at Meany Hall.

Funky Mogadishu: The Music of Somalia’s Disco Era

Tickets are $5 – $20��|��

MFON: Women Photographers of the African Diaspora

Reclaiming our Attention in an Age of Distraction

November 1, 7:30 pm | Town Hall Seattle

91���� Communications Leadership Program presents author and artist Jenny Odell in discussing the impact digital media has on our everyday lives. Joined by political reporter Austin Jenkins, this lecture addresses the dilemma of life in an age of constant distraction. Together Odell and Jenkins advocate for us to reclaim our own attention, redefining what we think of as productivity and reconnecting with the people and places that surround us.�� Tickets are FREE for students under 22!

Tickets are $0 – $5��|

The Paco de Lucía Project; Flamenco Legends by Javier Limón

Free, RSVP encouraged��|��More info

Closing Soon: A Celebration of Botanical Art, Silk, and Glass

The first day of spring, when daylight hours begin to exceed nighttime hours, seems especially significant this year — record warm temperatures in the Northwest are marking the change of seasons. But our blooms may be a couple weeks behind schedule after February’s snow and cold weather.

Ray Larson, curator at , explains that earlier cold temperatures may have delayed flowering plants, with bulbs and perennials being weeks behind their normal blooming time. But he says while warmth is a big factor in how plants grow, springtime’s increasing daylight plays an even bigger role.

After a few mild winters, he says this year’s cold snap may have tested the hardiness of some plants — but not to give up on them coming back yet. Don’t assume they are dead; give them until May or June before removing weather-beaten plants.

For more information:

Contact Kiyomi Taguchi, 91���� News video producer: ktaguchi@uw.edu or 206-685-2716.

A new for smartphones and tablets shows every plant and tree that’s part of the arboretum’s collection, now numbering more than 15,000. Visitors can pull up the map on their phones, locate themselves, then zoom in to see which plants are nearby.

Each colored dot displays details about the plant, including its scientific and common name, where it came from, images on Google and last-reported condition. The map also gives “accession” information, which means the year it was planted in the arboretum and, more specifically, the order in which it was planted in relation to other plants of the same year.

The online map first debuted two years ago but wasn’t optimized for mobile devices, said Tracy Mehlin, information technology librarian at who managed the project. Now, with a gift from the Northwest Horticultural Society, the map responds much more quickly in the field, she said.

The best part about having a digital, mapped library at your fingertips?

“I like the ability for people to save favorite plants,” Mehlin said. “They can do a search for certain plants and get a results list, or walk around and say, ‘that’s a fantastic tree’ and favorite it. Then they can come back a year later and find that same tree.”

The favorites lists are saved on the device and don’t require a login or registration to use the feature.

91���� Botanic Gardens plans to create a similar interactive map for the plants at the , north of the arboretum along Lake Washington. Staff members welcome talented students with an interest in GIS and plants to suggest improvements as the map gains more users.

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For more information, contact Mehlin at tmehlin@uw.edu or 206-616-9481.

Part-time 91���� gardener designs winning display
Riz Reyes, who works part time as a gardener with the 91���� Botanic Gardens, claimed the top prize at the this week. Reyes, who earned his bachelor’s in environmental horticulture and urban forestry from the 91����, owns in Shoreline.

The flower and garden show proposed movies as the theme for gardens and Reyes said he took inspiration from Jurassic Park, King Kong and Raiders of the Lost Ark for his garden titled “The Lost Gardener – A Journey from the Wild to the Cultivated.”

Seattle garden writer Valerie Easton , “The cool plant garden that took the Founder’s Cup – “The Lost Gardener” – is by Riz Reyes, a F&G Show first-timer. . . How many years has it been since there’s been a real plant collector’s garden? This one is all about unusual and rare plants, used extravagantly to create a jungle of a garden. How good Riz was rewarded with the big prize for being daring with his plant choices.”

Included in the display are more than 75 different kinds of .

At the 91����, Reyes works at the Center for Urban Horticulture and is responsible for maintaining the

The flower and garden show continues this weekend.

RecycleMania a chance to increase recycling, composting on campus
You can help the 91����’s standings in this year’s RecycleMania by increasing your efforts to recycle and compost between now and March 30.

The competition pits the 91���� against universities nationwide – including the Pac-12 rivals such as ASU, Stanford and WSU – to determine the top recycler.

Since Feb. 3, 91���� Recycling has been tracking the amount of recycling, food waste and garbage collected on campus each week. 91���� is competing in four categories: the highest waste diversion rate (recycling compared to what is thrown away); the highest recycling rate per person on campus; the highest gross tonnage of recycling generated on campus; and the highest percentage of food waste composted per person.

91���� Recycling is sharing weekly results on its , where you can also see results of a competition between 91���� residence halls sponsored by Housing and Food Services.

The competitions provides incentives to take waste diversion at the 91���� further, according Jessica Lisiewski, 91���� Recycling & Solid Waste program coordinator. The more participation across campus, the closer the 91���� can get to reaching its waste diversion goal of 70 percent by 2020, she said.

Newborn screening test brings chemical society honor to Gelb, Tureček
and , 91���� chemistry professors, will be presented the for their work in devising methods to detect rare genetic diseases in newborns.

The diseases – which include Tay-Sachs, Gaucher, Krabbe, Pompe, Nieman-Pick, Fabry, and Hurler syndromes – affect about one in every 5,000 people and cause serious abnormalities in children, often resulting in premature death. Early detection is important for the best chances of effective treatment.

The procedures for newborn screening developed by Gelb and Tureček have proven so reliable and inexpensive that several states now require that every newborn be tested.

The award will be presented by the Northeastern Section of the American Chemical Society April 4 at Harvard University.