Arboretum offers spring display

Elmore site awaits visitors for free event

Rod Noble, executive director of Schedel Arboretum and Gardens in Elmore, oversees a 17-acre site filled with mag­no­lia, dog­wood, and cherry trees. The grounds will host its Meet the Art­ists Com­mu­nity Day, a free event for the public, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

ELMORE — The Schedel Arboretum and Gardens bloom with life as spring gets under way in earnest. Magnolia, dogwood, and cherry trees, along with tulips and irises, are but a few of the flowering plants in evidence on the spacious 17-acre grounds.

“It’s my favorite time of year — when things wake up,” said Rod Noble, Schedel’s executive director.

On Saturday, Schedel officially ushers in the season of warmth and growth with its Meet the Artists Community Day, a free event for the public. It will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The grounds will be open for viewing, and there will be plenty of artists on hand whose pieces are sold in Schedel’s Garden Argosy Gift Shop. The featured demonstration will be by Jan Pugh of Packer Creek Pottery in Genoa, who will produce majolica ceramics on her pottery wheel.

Activities will include face painting, bonsai demonstrations, worm composting, seed planting, wool spinning and dying, butterfly and insect displays, and gardening.

Handmade crafts for sale will include purses, bird feeders, jewelry, clay leaf impressions, bird and butterfly houses, sea glass jewelry, and origami.

“We have a lot of neat people,” said Veronica Sheets, Schedel’s events coordinator. “There will be kettle corn, a live Irish band, and lots of things for kids to do.”

Mr. Noble said one purpose of the community day is to let residents of the region know what Schedel has to offer.

“People think we’re out in the hinterlands in Elmore, but we’re only 30 minutes from downtown Toledo and Bowling Green. We’re always trying to get the word out and let people see what we have,” he said.

Mr. Noble is especially proud of the three Yoshino cherry trees on the grounds. They were grown from cuttings taken from the famous Tidal Basin cherry trees in Washington, a gift from Japan in 1912.

Schedel also has a grove of dawn redwoods, an ancient tree species that was around when dinosaurs lived. It was known only from the fossil record and believed extinct until the 1940s, when the trees were found growing in western China. Schedel’s dawn redwoods have grown tall and ramrod straight.

The arboretum and gardens are named for Joseph and Marie Schedel, who lived there in a Victorian manse. Mr. Schedel was a German-born engineer who made his fortune in the limestone business. The estate was opened to the public following their deaths, and is operated by the Schedel Foundation.

“It’s a very popular place for graduation and prom parties,” Mr. Noble said. “We have 45 wedding ceremonies scheduled for the summer.”

Four full-time staffers and 15 seasonal workers maintain the grounds for maximum beauty, overseeing two man-made lakes and the planting of 12,000 annuals, he said. “It’s really important to us that we fulfill the legacy the Schedels left,” Mr. Noble said.