New stenciled road signs help visitors navigate the Arboretum’s collections
If you’ve recently strolled through the Arnold Arboretum, you may have noticed something new underfoot—words and arrows stenciled directly onto the paved roads. These markings, while simple in appearance, are part of a new wayfinding initiative designed to help visitors navigate our 281-acre landscape and discover its many botanical treasures.
The signs offer an intentional and, we’d like to think, somewhat playful way to guide exploration. Rather than relying solely on printed maps or digital tools, these signs point the way to major plant collections and areas of interest—like the crabapples, the hickories, and the conifers. They help answer some of the most common questions we hear from visitors like “Where are the maples?” and “How do I get to the bonsai pavilion?” With these subtle prompts, we hope to make the Arboretum more accessible and inviting to all.
Beyond simple wayfinding, the stenciled signage helps promote the Arboretum’s broader educational mission. By drawing attention to specific plant collections, we encourage visitors to explore more deeply, and perhaps even to begin recognize and identify plant families. It also reinforces the taxonomic arrangement of the Arboretum and helps counter what scientists call “plant blindness”—our tendency to overlook the plants in our environment. We hope this orientation tool might foster a deeper appreciation for biodiversity and the living landscape.
The Arboretum is, after all, a museum of trees. Each collection is like a gallery, and the landscape is an exhibition space for living things. These road signs serve as gentle invitations to step into those galleries and look more closely.
Rather than cluttering the landscape with excessive signage that can disrupt views and detract from the natural beauty of the landscape, the prompts activate some of the vast areas of pavement that comprise the Arboretum’s road system. Keeping these signs on the ground helps us improve navigation while preserving the integrity of the landscape and the visitor experience.
This summer, stenciled signage will be added at three additional intersections throughout the Arboretum, highlighting featured collections like the golden larches, the rhododendrons, and the mountain laurels. So, the next time you see a painted arrow pointing toward the viburnums or a label guiding you to the bonsai, we hope you’ll follow it—and maybe discover something new along the way.