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The Arboretum is a popular spot to visit, whether for students and locals. The Arboretum
offers a tour every third Saturday at 11 a.m. from March to November.
Arboretum Curator Margo MacIntyre prunes a flowering tree. She remembers playing in
the Arboretum as a child.
Nye’s story, which is told in former Arboretum curator
Dan Stern’s book, A Haven in the Heart of Chapel Hill,
is Stephen Rich’s favorite anecdote to share when he gives
monthly tours.
A cURATOR’S wORk
“(The Arboretum’s) in the middle of campus and you
can kind of feel the whole mood of campus,” says Margo
MacIntyre, curator of the Arboretum. “Right now everybody’s
happy because they can be outside. They like to come
out and lie down and take breaks and study—with their
eyes closed.”
MacIntyre, in her pants sprinkled with dirt, old T-shirt
and heavy-duty work boots, looks ready to care for her
organic domain. She explains that her job primarily involves
maintaining the Arboretum by weeding and cutting back
the sprawling plants. Most of the plants are perennials,
meaning they re-bloom for several years.
“We don’t do much seasonal planting at all,” MacIntyre
says. “We just have two little pansy places. We have a lot
of rabbits so they have to be in strategic safe spots. And
most of the work is maintenance, and sometimes there is
replacement of things that die or we have lost a few trees to
drought and lightning.”
MacIntyre, who has worked as the curator for six years,
grew up in Chapel Hill not far from the Arboretum. She
remembers playing on the grounds after her Girl Scouts
meetings.
“I used to hate weeding and gardening when I was a
teenager,” MacIntyre says. “But then as time went on I
started to like it for some reason, and now I really like it. I
can’t stop.”
Professor William Chambers Coker, UNC-CH’s first
botany professor, wanted a place for an outdoor classroom
and started the Arboretum in 1903 with $10 and one
gardener, Rich says. The Arboretum is now overseen by the
North Carolina Botanical Garden.
GROwING IN EDUcATION
While explaining her job, MacIntyre shouts a question
to one of her work-study students through the tangle of
vines encircling the arbor. She has a crew of five work-study
students who cultivate their respective projects throughout
the grounds.
Junior Brandon Hays is one of the work-study students
who help maintain the Arboretum. He says he had no
experience in gardening before his job and has learned the
taxonomy of some of the plants from replacing the missing
signs in front of them.
“There is pretty much something blooming at every time
of the year,” he says.
Sam Leeper, a sophomore work-study student who
mostly works at the N.C. Botanical Garden’s main site on
Old Mason Farm Road has realized his enjoyment and
knack for gardening through his job.
Working there has affected Leeper’s schooling—but in a
positive way. He has gained interest in plant biology, which
has prompted him to take courses on the subject at UNC-
CH. Leeper wants to work in forestry or urban area design,
so his experiences have helped him for the future. He calls
his time in the gardens therapeutic.
“Gardens, like (those of the N.C. Botanical Garden),
I have found are just full of really cool people—laid back
Swink pulls weeds from among plants in the garden. Most of the plants in the Arboretum are perennials, which means they
re-bloom year after year.
and fun to talk to—like other work-study students as well as
full-time workers,” Leeper says. “I have made a lot of good
friends.”
STROLLING THROUGH HISTORY
With a Southern drawl and a wide smile Rich shares the
stories of the Arboretum, which he became familiar with during
his time as a student at UNC-CH.
“Every day I would be going from Cobb dorm to the
fraternity,” Rich says, “so of course I would be going right
through (the Arboretum). This always felt like home to me.”
Rich warns that he could ramble on and on about the
Arboretum; there are countless stories about every little plant
and path. As Rich walks through the Arboretum, he carries
around a slightly worn copy of Stern’s book. Periodically
referencing it for particular facts and showing off the beautiful
pictures of the Arboretum, Rich seems to value the book,
as the pages are bookmarked and article clippings are stuffed
in the pages.
At one point, Rich stops to comment on something most
people completely overlook: the gravel covering the paths. He
explains that the gravel, affectionately called ‘Carolina grit,’
used to be all over campus, but for safety reasons, the paths
were later bricked.
“The story about the grit is (that) once you get Chapel
Hill grit in your shoes, you are destined to return here one
day,” Rich says. “There is a counter story to that too. When
people from Chapel Hill would go to Durham, the Durham
people would go, ‘Oh those Chapel Hill people come
with the dirtiest shoes,’ and the Chapel Hill people would
retort by saying, ‘Well, we wouldn’t wear our good shoes to
Durham.’”
Rich also shares the story of a large stone area called the
stone gathering circle. Located near the front of the Arboretum,
it was donated by the class of 1997 in the memory of
five students who died in the 1996 fire at the Phi Gamma
Delta fraternity house. This beautiful area is a great place to
sit and has a decoration of a poplar flower in the middle of
the stone floor. Legend says that the center of the plant lines
up with the Davie Poplar tree on the upper Quad.
Rich, who is on the board of the N.C. Botanical Garden,
is also part of a group that volunteers at the Arboretum.
“We work every Tuesday—a group of older citizens,” Rich
says. “We do whatever Margo wants us to do.”
MEANT TO INSPIRE
The early warm weather has brought even more students
to this campus oasis. Petals float down lazily from the overhanging
trees onto a student sprawled out on a bench. Several
people have strung up hammocks. Sitting in a secluded spot,
sophomore Adrienne Franz says she comes to the Arboretum
several times a week.
“It’s pretty this time of year,” Franz says. “It’s somewhere
to be outside with nice benches.”
The blooming flowers add their vibrant colors and sweet
fragrances to the tall trees and the bright green of the abundant
grass. A small stream flows over carefully positioned
rocks.
MacIntyre especially agrees with the part of the Arboretum’s
mission that wishes to inspire visitors with the wonders
of the grounds.
“Everybody should visit the Arboretum,” MacIntyre says.
“It’s always sad when people graduate and they have never
come here.”
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