What a “wheekend”: We’ve got Homecoming and Harvest and Heliotropium curassavicum, commonly known as salt heliotrope, one of dozens of beauties you’ll find at the arboretum’s first plant sale of the fall season.

Pajamas and Homecoming

Homecoming activities include the 102nd annual Pajamarino, Friday night (Oct. 10), and, of course, the Saturday football game (Oct. 11): UC Davis vs. Montana State.

Pajamarino traces its roots back to 1912, when students sneaked out of their dorm rooms to meet alumni arriving on the train for Homecoming. Over the years, Pajamarino has grown into an event for students, alumni and the Davis community — and, of course, everyone's encouraged to wear PJs to this family friendly event.

The Cal Aggie Student Alumni Association organizes Pajamarino, which starts with the Pajama Parade at 5:15 p.m. at Central Park (Third and C streets). If you're marching, try to get there by 4:30 p.m. for check-in — and, if you’re among the first 500 people, you’ll get a commemorative T-shirt.

The Cal Aggie Marching Band-uh will lead the parade to the train station, 840 Second St., where the main event begins at 5:30 p.m. There will be more music from the band, plus dancing and cheering from the Spirit Squad, and drumming from another student group, Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan.

Pajamarino also will include a PJ relay, face painting, games, prizes and free food from Davis businesses.

Wine tasting event precedes football

It’s be the Aggies vs. the Bobcats of Montana State, kickoff 4 p.m. Saturday (Oct. 11) at Aggie Stadium.

And before that, fans are invited to the third annual Wine Tasting with the Aggies, featuring more than 40 wines. The event celebrates UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology. “The continuing excellence of the department has enabled California growers and vintners to develop practices that have allowed the Golden State to achieve its potential and become a premier wine-producing region. The excellence demonstrated in viticulture and enology has produced some of the greatest winemakers in the nation.”

The wine tasting event is scheduled from 1 to 3:30 p.m. on the Aggie Tailgating Field. Here’s the best way to get wine tasting tickets: Go to the ticket office (northeast corner of Aggie Stadium) or call the office, (530) 752-AGS1 (2471); hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Game tickets only are available at the ticket office, by phone and online.

'New Front Yard' plant sale

Presented by Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, this Saturday (Oct. 11). As always, at the first sale of the season, the first two hours (9-11 a.m.) are reserved for members. Then, the sale is open to everyone until 1 p.m. Not a member? You can join at the gate (at the Arboretum Teaching Nursery)!

At both plant sales this fall (the second one is Saturday, Oct. 25), the emphasis is on "The New Front Yard” — referring to the switchover that many homeowners are making, to replace high-water-use plants with low-water alternatives.

“That’s why this October you are going to find just what you need at our ‘New Front Yard’ fall plant sales,” the arboretum declares on its plant sales Web page. “We are going to have the area’s largest selection of attractive, drought-tolerant, easy-care, region-appropriate plants including lots of California natives and Arboretum All-Stars.”

"The New Front Yard” plant list — “our list of 40 attractive, low-water plants that also support wildlife” — is available for download.

Harvest: A Gathering of Food, Wine, Beer and Arts

This Sunday (Oct. 12), the campus’s Gateway District (south entry) will be the site of an overflowing cornucopia of family-oriented activities, including “The Art of Science” and food sensory booths, all meant to provide a deeper understanding of the university’s role in food and agriculture.

Harvest combines the resources of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, World Food Center, Arboretum and Public Garden, Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, Nelson Gallery, and the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.

Harvest is open to the public, and all events are free with the exception of a food, wine and beer tasting event in the Good Life Garden (at the Robert Mondavi Institute) and an evening concert by Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne (in Jackson Hall at the Mondavi Center).

The day’s activities start at 1 p.m. on the Wyatt Deck (in the arboretum) with performances and hands-on demonstrations exploring “The Art of Science.”

The Vanderhoef Quad and Corin Courtyard outside the Mondavi Center are the venues for a science café featuring food sensory booths curated by the World Food Center, face painting, music, petting zoo, pumpkin decorating, food trucks and the Davis Rocknasium climbing wall, from 2 to 7 p.m.

The Nelson Gallery (in Nelson Hall) opens its doors at 2 p.m. for two new exhibitions: “MAKE: A New Museum for UC Davis,” an exhibition about the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art (opening in the 2016-17 academic year), and the “Lake Tahoe Sonification Project,” a sound installation by music composition students, using scientific data. An opening reception is planned from 4 to 7 p.m.

Then, at 7:30 p.m., LaMontagne will perform off his four albums, including the recently released Supernova.

Read more about Harvest.

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