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Recipe – Vegan Ratatouille & Rice
Vegan Ratatouille & Rice Prep Time 10 minutes Cook Time 30 minutes Total Time 40 minutes Total Yield 3 servings Calories Per Serving 363 kcal Ingredients 1 tbsp olive oil 1 white or yellow onion diced 3 cloves garlic minced 1 medium zucchini diced 1 eggplant diced 1/8 tsp ground black pepper 1/2 tsp dried oregano 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes 1 red bell pepper diced 2 Roma tomatoes diced 1 cup white rice 1 and 1/2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth plus more as needed fresh basil for serving Instructions In a […]
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Whittier’s Walk Phase II
Our students are at it again! They cannot be stopped! During the Spring 2020 semester our Learning by Leading™ (LxL) Urban Horticulture Co-coordinators (CoCo’s) worked with their interns to design and plant Phase II of our Whittier’s Walk commemorative garden, using skills they developed while working with our campus landscape architect last fall […]
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UCF Prescribed Burn Team
Spring Break is typically a time when college students leave campus to vacation at beaches and springs to cool down and relax outside, however this year a select group of UCF students chose to stay on campus and turn up the heat! In March 2020, the UCF Arboretum hosted its first S130/S190 Basic Wildland […]
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Community Garden Transition
The original Arboretum Community Garden, which has been a centerpiece of our volunteer program since it was established in 2009, has undergone many changes in the last few years. As we reported previously, due to construction of a new cell tower, we moved the Community Farm and Garden to a new location that is larger […]
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Message From the Director
Fall is a time of harvest and giving thanks. In Florida, we are always a little out of sync with the rest of the country when it comes to harvest as many of our crops go in the ground in October and we continue to harvest throughout the winter! While we may be out of […]
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Student Spotlight – Mayerlin Fischbach
Greetings! I’m an undergraduate senior who plans on continuing my formal education for more years to come. I’ve been working at the UCF Arboretum since December of 2017- and can sincerely say I have cherished every moment I spend in our gardens, natural lands and bustling office. It is an absolute joy working with community […]
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10-Year Anniversary Garden Bash
Nature and Knightro—what more could you wish for at the Arboretum Garden Bash Kickoff? Early in the 2019 fall semester, the Arboretum celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the original Community Garden. For the past 10 years, the Arboretum has been using organic practices to grow veggies and herbs for UCF students to teach them about […]
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Reinvigorating UCF Landscapes with the Bee Campus USA team
Our new Bee Campus USA program co-coordinators transformed a rock-covered corner of a campus courtyard into a beautiful pollinator garden! The transformed area is in the courtyard of the business administration 1 building where there were several strips and cutout areas covered in black lava rock. Irrigation heads provided evidence that these areas originally had […]
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Protecting Campus and Community From Wildfire
Fire is a critical component of nearly every ecosystem in the southeastern United States. Central Florida is the lightning capital of the U.S., and historically our frequent thunderstorms ignited fires in the forest. As a result, many of the state’s natural ecosystems would burn every 2-5 years. During periods of extreme dry weather, especially during […]
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Learning by Leading™ @ UCF
Students, students everywhere! We are excited to announce that beginning this fall semester we are dramatically increasing student opportunities at the UCF Arboretum through implementing the Learning by Leading™ @ UCF Program. The Learning by Leading™ (LxL) Program was developed by the University of California, Davis Arboretum, and is organized around the premise that students […]
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New Arboretum Master Plan Unveiled
The UCF Arboretum started as a 10-acre site in 1983 on what was then the edge of campus. Over the years several parcels were added to bring the Arboretum to its current size of 82 acres, but the original site remains the core area for the Arboretum program. It contains Arboretum facilities such as the […]
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Urban Forestry
The Urban Forestry Department at UCF was formed in 2004 with the mission of improving the campus aesthetics, mitigating hurricane storm damage, increasing tree diversity, improving ecosystem services and engaging with students through the Arboretum Program. Since 2004 the urban forestry team has grown to six individuals, five of which are certified arborists through […]
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UCF First Designated Bee Campus USA
Last year, UCF became the first university in Florida to be designated as a Bee Campus USA. Bee Campuses aim to increase communication about the importance of pollinators and what we can to enhance their habitats in our continuously urbanizing landscape. The Bee Campus program, which is operated through the internationally-renowned insect conservation organization, the […]
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Arboretum Community Farm and Garden Summer 2019
Eggplant, tomato, corn, sweet potato, peppers, melon…hungry yet?! These are just a few examples of the delicious produce grown in the Arboretum Community Farm and Garden for the summer season. Our Spring Newsletter highlighted the construction of the new garden, and now the garden is complete! Volunteers put in many hours at the end of […]
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Arboretum Director’s Message
Gardens are places where people grow plants, but gardens grow people too. University gardens in particular are committed to the growth and development of people through education, research and community involvement. In addition to helping plants and environments thrive, we help people thrive by creating beautiful, sometimes wondrous spaces, by providing opportunities for people to […]
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Director’s Message
Every good gardener knows that you can’t grow a strong plant on weak roots. At the UCF Arboretum, we are continually reminded that our success is rooted in our past. Our founding director, the late Dr. Hank Whittier, spent over 20 years laying the foundation for our program. We are excited to announce that we […]
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New Finding Sheds More Light on Zombie Ants
Charissa de Bekker, Ph.D., an assistant professor in biology, came to UCF earlier this year to continue her research on a fungal parasite that infects ants, hijacks their brains and controls their behavior to spread its fungal spores – a phenomenon that’s led to those infected being called “zombie ants.” Throughout her career, she’s found […]