Klehm Arboretum and Botanic Garden

Klehm Arboretum and Botanic Garden (63 ha / 155 acres) is a nonprofit arboretum and botanical garden located at 2715 South Main Street, Rockford, Illinois. It is open daily except for major holidays; an admission fee is charged. Klehm can be reached at 1-888-419-0782.

The arboretum was first established in 1910 as Rockford Nursery by landscape architect William Lincoln Taylor, who planted many of the arboretum's trees. The Klehm family purchased the nursery in 1968 and maintained it until 1985, when they donated the property to the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District as an arboretum. In the early 1990s, the site was inventoried, a master plan developed, and a capital campaign undertaken. Garden plantings began in 1994.

The arboretum includes a pre-settlement Bur Oak grove (5 ha / 12 acres) whose largest trees are estimated to be over 300 years old. It also includes over 50 species and cultivars of conifers, representing nine groups from North America, Europe, and Asia, such as firs, Chamaecyparis, junipers, spruces, pines, Douglas fir, yews, arborvitae, hemlock, Nikko Firs, contorted Meyer's Spruce, spiny Common Juniper, columnar spired arborvitae, and the shaggy threadleaf Sawara Cypress ("Chamaecyparis pisifera" 'Filifera'). The birch collection includes six species, Paper Birch, Downy Birch, New England Gray Birch, River Birch, Yellow Birch, and Sweet Birch.

The European collection includes mature Norway Maple, Field Maple, Pedunculate Oak, English Elm, European Beech, Common Horse-chestnut, Mountain Pine and Scots Pine, as well as European Larch, European Hornbeam, spindle tree ("Euonymus europaeus"), and Rowan. The East Asian collection includes cork trees ("Phellodendron amurense"), false cypress, katsura, Amur Maple, Japanese red and white magnolia, flowering quince, and various honeysuckles. The Northern America collection includes American Beech, Yellow Buckeye, Cucumber tree, tulip-tree, Ponderosa Pine, Colorado Blue Spruce, and Douglas-fir.

Other woody plants include basswood, Red Buckeye, Black Cherry, American Chestnut, dogwood, "Enkianthus", "Fontanesia", fringe tree ("Chionanthus virginicus"), hackberry, spiny Hemiptelea, Japanese Pagoda Tree, Shagbark Hickory, Umbrella Magnolia, Scarlet Oak, White Oak, redbud, Carolina silverbell ("Halesia carolina"), sourwood, sweetgum, viburnum, Black Walnut, and wisteria.

The gardens include a Butterfly Garden, Daylily Garden, Demonstration Gardens, Fountain Garden, Grass Garden, Hosta Garden, Nancy Olson Children's Garden, and a Prehistoric Garden (with cycads, bald cypress, ferns, Ginkgo, horsetails, liverworts, mosses and clubmosses, bristlecone pine, and Dawn Redwood).

As reported in the Rockford Register Star, financial difficulties threaten the garden's future as 5 full time staff members were let go in early 2007. The garden's executive director resigned 2 months later

External links

* [http://www.klehm.org/ Klehm Arboretum and Botanic Garden]

See also

* List of botanical gardens in the United States