The State Arboretum of Virginia is located at the University of Virginia’s Blandy Experimental Farm in Clarke County, VA in the northern Shenandoah Valley. The Arboretum is named in honor of Blandy’s first director. He was an plant geneticist and collected plants from around the world. Many of the specimens in the collections date to the Orland White era, but the modern focus in the Arboretum is on plants native to Virginia and the mid-Atlantic. The Arboretum has an exceptional collection of conifers, maples, oaks, and buckeyes. It is home to a large and diverse boxwood collection and is renowned for its Ginkgo Grove. It hosts a vibrant environmentally-focused K-12 program, and faculty and students conduct research in the environmental sciences. The Arboretum and much of Blandy’s 700 acres are open to the public, free of charge, from dawn to dusk, 365 days a year.
