Nature Study ideas for an arboretum/garden visit

we grow landscape trees for a living, so every day is “arboretum day” for us 🙂 one of the first things we try to get our kids to recognize about trees is the difference b/w deciduous and evergreen – right now most things have leafed out, so it can be a little trickier. We also try to get them to id trees (we do this regularly so it’s a fun game, even for me because we have so many I don’t even know them all). Look for the flowers of the trees and id them by their flower (even maples, elms, etc. have flowers, you just have to look hard for them – they are small and just in the spring when everything is leafing out). Notice that some leaf, then flower and some are the opposite, they flower, then leaf out. Notice different types of bark – do bark rubbings. Notice which are shade plants and which are full sun. Understory vs. canopy trees. Upland growing vs. bottom growing trees (don’t know how much of this you see in an arboretum vs. the woods). Look for dropped “berries” from dogwoods, acorns from oaks, pinecones from pines etc. – we’ll look for those things on the ground and try to guess the tree above us before we look up. Those are the first things that come to mind that we do regularly – we just try to get them more and more familiar with all the variety – I never knew how much there was until I married my husband – the tree world is very interesting 🙂 Taking a field guide for trees would be helpful in case things aren’t labeled.