Hi, I'm Serika.

And I'm Will.

And today we're at the arboretum.

To learn about Michigan plants.

All right, so were here right now.

I think we should definitely go to the native plant garden.

And then after we can go to the Japanese garden.

Yeah.

And how about the Michigan and English Gardens?

Mhm.

Hi, guys.

Welcome to the Landscape Arboretum.

Let's go check out some plants.

All right.

This is the Michigan native Plants Garden.

The plants in this garden help to showcase Michigan native plants.

So things like trees, shrubs, perennials.

When you're in an arboretum the designers of the space really want you to look up So a lot of these are really cool.

Michigan native trees.

One of my favorite is the Tulip Tree.

And so these are also called yellow poplars.

You can kind of see the flowers on them right now and they look like a tulip.

Oh Yeah.

So our nativ pollinators are really important to the landscape.

Pollinators are bees, right?

Well, pollinators can be a lot of different things.

They can b bees, wasps, flies, even bats.

Lets see what's going on in the pond.

There went a frog.

That's awesome.

One of my least favorite things that grows in the pond.

Mosquitoes.

So we try to keep the pond as healthy as possible with lots of different native plants and animals and frogs to eat that mosquito larva.

Are those lilies native to Michigan?

That is a Michigan native lily pad, yep.

So what's that plant called?

That's called an arrow plant.

And it looks like it's going to flower, which has a really interesting, like, lily-like flower on it.

It's really pretty.

Cool.

Hes just kind of chilling there.

So here in the Japanese garden, we have this really beautifu area that helps for meditation and helps to ground people to nature.

And so as you can see by some of the examples here, that people really com and make the garden their own.

And so there's fun examples of designs in the garden, is a great place to sit and be, feel peaceful and just take in the beauty of this unbelievable garden.

Is this how Zen Gardens normally look?

Well, in traditional Japanes design, the area would be raked and the rocks wouldn't be in the center.

Because we are a gateless garden, people get to kind of make the garden their own.

Look up at these.

Beautiful Ginkgos.

This type of tree has been aroun since the time of the dinosaurs.

This is the Japanese maple.

Woah.

It's got this nice, fine textured leaves.

Really thin.

Reall thin in the design of the tree.

Like the structure of the tree is very architectural.

So it's cool right now with the beautiful green leaves and in the fall, it's going to be a beautiful red color.

And then in the winter, it looks really cool too, because it has all those architectural branches.

Oh yeah.

Oh neat.

So this tree has interest year round.

These are pretty.

They look like Peonies?

And these ones are really pretty.

Almost look like rods growing out.

Might be my favorite.

And a bee.

Ooh.

Oh these are really cool.

This would be the napping bench, and that would be the tanning bench.

Yeah, what about that one?

Also a napping bench.

Yeah.

This is a really cool pond here in the arboretum.

Wow.

Look at the water lilies.

The flowers are so pretty.

They're so beautiful.

I'm sure there's lots of insects and some frogs in here too.

Try and find a frog again.

Can water lilies survive out of water?

Not for very long.

But these stay in this pond year round.

We don't take them out Oh Look!

Hi Buddy.

We had a lot of fun and learned a ton at the arboretum today.

What were some of your favorite things?

Well my favorite things were meeting this guy and also seeing all the different things that the gardens had to offer.

I really like the Japanese gardens and the frogs.

See you next time.