The ‘Arboretum All-Stars’ program, an educational outreach program of the UC Davis Arboretum, promotes the planting of water-conserving, heat-tolerant ornamental plants. These are both native plants and adaptable non-natives, many selected for their value to birds, beneficial insects, and other native pollinators.

This popular program has been met with enthusiasm by both the gardening community and the wholesale nursery industry. Arboretum plant sales have been unable to fill the demand for plants created by the All Stars educational program. Additionally, many of these plants are unusual in commercial nurseries because propagation and production techniques have not been defined or adequately disseminated.

Staff from the UC Davis Arboretum and the California Center for Urban Horticulture created this project to demonstrate the importance and beauty of environmentally friendly ornamental plants and to help establish a commercial conduit to make those plants more widely available.

A first wave of All Star plant species have been tested with commercial protocols recommended by the University and are being shipped to cooperating nurseries for marketing under the “All Stars” label. Ten additional species of All Star plants not currently available in retail nurseries are being tested in 2007 by industry collaborator, Takao Nurseries, and by the Department of Plant Sciences. Testing will examine plants under commercial production practices and will be evaluated for plant growth characteristics. Arboretum staff are developing point-of-purchase promotional information about the plants’ growing requirements, attractive features, environmental benefits and the UC Davis Arboretum All-Stars program.

These are the first steps in the development of a permanent plant-testing and distribution program for currently unavailable low-input, environmentally friendly plants well-suited to inland California growing conditions. Discussions are under way with a commercial propagator and wholesale grower who will distribute to retail nurseries that will market the plants under the “All Stars’ label. In the future the program envisions new demonstration gardens at UC Davis, County Cooperative Extension offices and satellite offices of the California Center for Urban Horticulture.

• All-Star launch partnership (pdf)