Mission

The Arboretum will lend beauty and tranquility to the campus and provide educational and recreational activities on campus. The mission of the Virginia Gent Decker Arboretum will play a role in the following aspects of campus life:

• Teaching: To provide an outdoor laboratory for the use by faculty and students in Biology and other departments.
  
  
• Research: To support and conduct research in a broad range of topics including ecology, botany, plant physiology, and natural history.
  
  
• Collections: To maintain, develop, and interpret plant collections for teaching, research, public education, and enjoyment.
  
  
• Recreation: To provide a place where people from the College and community may enjoy passive recreation.
  
  
• Public Education: To provide programs about the plant collections to students in the community and campus and to visitors to campus.
  
  

I am led to reflect how much more delightful to an undebauched mind is the task of making improvements on the earth, than all the vain glory which can be acquired from ravaging it... --George Washington, Dec. 4, 1788 Washington College patron, farmer and horticulturist

Program Selection

The following are examples of the enrichment programs that we offer at the Arboretum.

• Seed and Seed Travels
  
  
• Leaf Sorting, Matching, Rubbings
  
  
• Tree Leaf Collections
  
  
• Invasion of the Aliens - Non-native plants
  
  
• Ace Plantura - Plant Detective
  
  

Virginia Gent Decker Arboretum
300 Washington Avenue
Chestertown, MD 21620