Hoyt Arboretum

I can't believe we've lived here 4 years and we've never gone to the Hoyt Arboretum. In case you don't know, the word arboretum means tree place. Basically the arboretum is a tree museum. Because we live in mild climate, we are able to grow many varieties of trees and plants that are not native to this area.

There are beautiful hiking trails and many trees are marked so you know what they are and when they were planted. I think the plaque also tells you where they are from.

We went with a group of other homeschoolers and hired a guide to take us on a tour. He used to be a 2nd and 3rd grade teacher and he was great! We all learned a lot and just had a great time walking through this living museum.


The first tree I took photos of was this Monkey Puzzle from Chile. It's named the monkey puzzle because it's too sharp for monkeys to climb and they are puzzled by it.  I've seen these planted around town and they are very cool looking. But I had never seen one up close or touched one....they are razor sharp and would easily cut a careless person.

And this beauty is native to New England - the cold maple. It doesn't get cold enough here in Oregon for these trees to produce maple syrup, but they like to show off their glorious colors in the fall.

There were two times in our tour where the guide had the kids sit in complete silence for at least a minute. One was to listen to the sounds around them and the other was when we were on the platform of peace. It was golden. Some kids even closed their eyes while listening.

There was a gingko loop we walked. I love gingko trees - the leaves are so beautifully shaped.

And they call this the root tree because the roots have been exposed due to erosion. It's neat to see what a tree's root system looks like.

There is a section of redwoods and sequoias that is just beautiful to walk through. Did you know that the bark of sequoia trees is squishy?

Then we visited the Umbrella Tree....You can stand under this tree in the rain and keep dry. It was very cool, and hard to capture in the camera lens.

And then there was this tree which every kid would love to have in their yard.

Our final stop was this viewpoint where you can see Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Rainier.

Mt. St. Helens is the one in the forefront and Mt. Rainier is off to the left.

Halfway through our 4 hour "tour", we stopped for lunch and our guide had lots of activities  for the kids. While we were walking he picked up examples of leaves, pine cones and bark and made a matching game for the kids. He also had paper and crayons for leaf rubbing. And he showed us this giant pinecone he had....

He told us where there are three trees that produce these pinecones - they are actually only a couple miles from our house and it's an area we drive by frequently. We drove by to see if there were any on the ground, but there weren't. We'll keep trying!