The heart of any arboretum or botanic garden is its plant collections. Taltree’s collections typically focus on woody and herbaceous plants that tolerate our challenging clay soils and long, cold winters. The oak tree (Quercus spp.) is a natural for these conditions and as a result we have numerous oaks in our collection. Our Northwest Indiana native oaks as well as interesting hybrids can be seen in the gardens and wooded areas of the arboretum.

The Oak Islands exhibit showcases more than 40 different oak species from around the world.

Our growing Viburnum collection can be found throughout the Welcome Garden, Pavilion Gardens and in the Oak Islands exhibit. It consists of many different species of this versatile shrub. Other collections include the Rose Family Collection (Rosa spp.), the Native Plant Collection (in the Native Plant Garden) and the Dogwood Collection (Cornus spp.), located throughout the arboretum.

Sugar Maple shown left.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Young D. Choi, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University Calumet, with the assistance of students, performed a flora survey of the plants of Taltree during the summers of 2008 and 2009. Dr. Choi's report can be seen here:

FloraReport