Celebrating the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Earth Day
Tue, April 22, 2025, at 11am
Peter Moe
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum director, retired
University of Minnesota
Midland Hills Country Club
2001 Fulham Street
Roseville, MN 55113
UMRA’s Earth Day forum on April 22 at Midland Hills Country Club in Roseville will feature a presentation by Peter Moe, the recently retired director of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. He started working for the Arboretum as a student gardener in 1973 and stayed some 50 years. He served in increasingly responsible positions until he was appointed director in 2016, the position he held until he retired in 2023. He is well known and admired for building an incredibly successful facility and program for the University.
Moe will provide us with a brief history of the Arboretum and information on how its research programs, gardens, plant collections, displays, and educational programs provide a resource for home gardeners. He will cover several of the high-quality fruit and landscape plants developed at the Arboretum, including apples from the famous Haralson and Honeycrisp to Triumph and Kudos; well-adapted shade trees, including the Northwood Red Maple; and the Northern Lights series of hardy azaleas that has been so successful.
A 1975 graduate of the University, Moe holds a bachelor of science in horticultural science and master of agriculture from the College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. His wife and all three of their children are U of M graduates. “I decided I would attend the U of M while I was in the second grade,” Moe said in a 2024 interview with the UMRA newsletter. Not surprisingly, he is also an avid gardener.
The Arboretum predates Earth Day (first observed in 1970) but, as Moe has pointed out, its mission, programs, and plantings match up well with the goals and objectives of Earth Day.
We are lucky to have such a timely and talented speaker, and we invite all to come and learn and get ready for spring in Minnesota.
Make your reservation and prepay today for UMRA’s luncheon forum at Midland Hills on Tuesday, April 22.
—Bill Donohue, UMRA Program Committee
Upcoming Events
The Black Count: Glory and Betrayal by Tom Reiss, published in 2012 and winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in biography, will be the selection for discussion when UMRA’s Fourth Friday Book Club meets via Zoom at 2 p.m. on Friday, April 25. Newcomers are welcome.
Morris Campus Retirees will host a Zoom meeting. Morris Campus Retirees are part of the University of Minnesota Retiree Association (UMRA). The group has already held two meetings in its first year of existence.
Peter Moe, retired Minnesota Landscape Arboretum director and UMRA member, will be leading a hiking tour of the Arboretum again this year. The amazing tulip display was at its peak for our hike last year, and we will undoubtedly enjoy seeing many spring-blooming trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and perennials. Plan to stay for lunch together (optional) after the hike at the Rootstock café in the Oswald Visitor Center.
UMRA’s Family History Interest Group will meet via Zoom on Wednesday, May 7, for an open discussion of ideas, insights, questions, and issues related to family history, and to discuss topics for next year’s meetings.
We will revisit the University of Minnesota Archives, with its major holdings largely tucked away in two huge underground caverns along the Mississippi River under the West Bank campus, holds the essential records of our University of Minnesota’s past. University Archivist Erik Moore will interpret the holdings and bring out a sampling of what it holds. We will also get a tour of the caverns (Minnesota Library Access Center), revealing where these precious materials are housed, including the original tapes of KUOM, now Radio K.
Cancer has touched all of us. If you are willing to share your cancer journey or talk about your experience with a person you have supported, please consider attending the May 8 UMRA breakfast gathering at The Original Pancake House in Roseville.
You are cordially invited to this presentation by Andy Whitman, Professor, Attorney, Volunteer Financial Planner. He will discuss investments for your grandchildren.
The UMRA Photo Club is having a photo shoot at the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 13.
Financial scams are a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, and learning how to spot and avoid scams is more important than ever to your financial health. For UMRA’s May workshop, Jay Haapala, leader of AARP’s Fraud Watch Network, will share with us the latest criminal trends in scamming and how to avoid them.
The UMRA Book Club will discuss The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon when it meets via Zoom on May 16.
.Wood Lake Nature Center is a peaceful 150-acre cattail marsh, woodland, and restored prairie that is a haven for migrating birds and waterfowl. This UMRA hike is a great opportunity for those who would like a shorter, easier hike. The trails are dirt, grass, and woodchip, with some bridges and a bit of paved trails. Only a couple small hills to navigate, the park is mostly flat.
University of Minnesota Regent Penny Wheeler, MD, will be the featured guest for the UMRA luncheon forum on May 20. In place of the usual speech format for our forums, Regent Wheeler will be interviewed by UMRA member and liaison to the Board of Regents John Finnegan, professor and dean emeritus of the U of M School of Public Health.
I, Claudius by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934, will be up for discussion when UMRA's Fourth Friday Book Club meets via Zoom on May 23.
The UMRA Book Club will discuss The Great River by Boyce Upton when it meets via Zoom on June 20.
Learn about writing memoirs, technology for seniors, campus architecture, and more at the fourth annual Age-Friendly University Day to be held in the McNamara Alumni Center on the Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis on Monday, June 23.
Catch up with friends and former colleagues, meet new UMRA members, enjoy delicious food, and participate in the third annual UMRA Summer Social Quiz at the Como Lakeside Pavilion in St. Paul on Wednesday, June 25.