Guided Tours
Laurelwood Arboretum offers three guided tours: a General Walking Tour, a Native Tree Tour, and an Exotic Tree Tour.
Guided tours can be scheduled April through October.
All tours are approximately one mile in length and 1 to 1½ hours long.
A motorized vehicle is available upon request to accommodate those who may not wish to do a walking tour. Each vehicle holds five visitors and one tour guide.
Guided Tours: $50 for up to 15 people, $5 for each additional person.
Motorized Carts: $15 for the use of one cart; there are two carts available.
Self-Guided Tours
Brochures and maps are available at the Notice Board in the Pines Lake Dr. West parking lot.
The Cell Phone Tour allows visitors to Laurelwood Arboretum, with cell phone in hand, to learn about the history and plantings of this unique natural park.
This self-paced cell phone tour guides people from the Knippenberg Center for Education along many of the arboretum’s scenic paths, through natural and designed spaces, and back to the center. At each of the 19 tour stops, they can hear details of the history and horticulture of this special place.
The cell phone tour takes about one hour to complete, depending on the visitor’s walking pace and interests.
The Friends of Laurelwood Arboretum cell phone tour was made possible by a generous donation from the Ira A. Roschelle, MD Family Foundation.
Click here for the brochure with map and instructions.
Click here for the full transcript.
The General Tour begins at the Knippenberg Center for Education and Educational Greenhouse and makes a loop through many areas of Laurelwood Arboretum.
It highlights the arboretum’s education buildings and new Native Plant Demonstration Garden and then follows the winding paths past the Sensory Garden, along Azalea Way, then passes the pond and memorial gazebo bringing one along Brook Road and Dorothy’s Way to the South Rock Garden, then circles back up Ridge Road which features handsome magnolias and hemlock trees and an extensive collection of rare rhododendrons, finally going down Easy Way and back to the Knippenberg Center for Education.
The Native Tree Tour focuses on 20 of Laurelwood Arboretum’s most interesting and unusual trees that are native to New Jersey.
Among these are the River Birch, Eastern Redcedar, White Oak, Mockernut Hickory, Chestnut Oak, Tuliptree and Eastern Hemlock.
The Exotic Tree Tour features 18 trees of foreign origin that were planted in the arboretum by Dorothy Knippenberg.
These include beautiful specimens of Japanese Umbrella Tree, Cedar of Lebanon, Ginkgo, Katsura, and Dawn Redwood.
The Native Plant Demonstration Garden provides landscaping for the Knippenberg Education Complex and provides native habitats that support the environment and are suitable for the home landscape.