UC Davis receives Tree Campus USA distinction for fifth consecutive year
UC Davis has been named “Tree Campus USA” for the fifth year in a row by the Arbor Day Foundation!
The Tree Campus USA program recognizes college and university campuses that effectively manage their campus trees, develop connectivity with the community beyond campus borders to foster healthy urban forests, and strive to engage their student population utilizing service learning opportunities centered on campus, and community forestry efforts.
What does it take to be named a “Tree Campus USA”?
- Campus Tree Advisory Committee
- Campus Tree Care Plan
- Campus Tree Program with Dedicated Annual Expenditures
- Arbor Day Observance
- Service Learning Project
Congratulations to our Grounds and Landscape Services team for taking care of our trees and keeping them a priority for our campus and the environment!
Update on stormwater quality improvement projects
This area at the west end of the UC Davis Arboretum, once subject to erosion from stormwater, is now home to native grasses.
Thanks to a partnership with UC Davis Environmental Health & Safety, new landscapes throughout campus are growing in areas once eroded by seasonal run-off. The projects are not only improving the campus landscape aesthetically, they are improving our stormwater quality and expanding our collection of low-maintenance, native grasses.
Funding for these projects comes from EH&S which budgets for stormwater and other environmental impact enhancements on an annual basis. Both Sue Fields and Brent Cutler have been working with Andrew Fulks, director of the UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve and campus naturalized lands, to identify areas for these types of improvements.
Read more:
Partnership with campus Environmental Health & Safety improves landscape and stormwater quality
Landscape improvements in west end of Arboretum to improve stormwater quality
Boy Scout troop helps install trail to connect Arboretum with North Fork Trail
On Saturday, March 23, 2013, boy scout volunteers from Troop 111 and Eagle Scout candidate Dale Shafer helped staff from the Arboretum and Public Garden’s Putah Creek Riparian Reserve build the first 800 feet of the North Fork Trail on the old channel of Putah Creek.
Together this team graded the trail, set 80 posts in place, and strung rope the entire length. Andrew Fulks and JP Marié were able to secure both the rope and the posts from the Solano County Water Agency at no cost.
This trail is the first segment of what will eventually be a connection to the Arboretum and West Village.
Media coverage of shovel drive and plant sale
Ellen Zagory, UC Davis Arboretum director of horticulture was quite the rock star on local television leading up to and on the day of our first public plant sale on April 6. Getting coverage of both our shovel drive and the plant sale created a ton of buzz that translated into a fantastic day of fundraising for the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum. If you missed any of the media, we’ve put together a recap below.
CBS Good Day Sacramento
LINK TO LIVE SPOT
Another piece appeared on the evening news, but we haven’t tracked that one down yet.
FOX 40
The link on the Fox 40 website already appears to have been removed. Below is a link to a YouTube video shot by Katie Hetrick, director of communications for the UC Davis Arboretum & public garden.
CLICK HERE
ABC News 10
Ellen appeared in the studio on Saturday morning.
CHECK IT OUT HERE!
This one takes a while to load…give it a chance…hopefully something will appear.
What is up with NBC? We hope to get them next time!
Print Promotions
29 March 2013 Davis Enterprise: “Dig in! Shovel donations sought for city/campus art project”
3 April 2013 Davis Enterprise: “The scoop on a sculpture of shovels: It’s about stories”
4 April 2013 Davis Enterprise: “Plant sale Saturday benefits Friends of the Arboretum”
6 April 2013 Sac Bee: “Seeds: UC Davis Arboretum presents Durable Delights”
Durable Delights showcased at spring plant sales
Gorgeous and hearty plants that shine without much polish!
Durable Delight #14, Mulenbergia capillaris (pink muhly), has been used throughout campus for its long-lasting. unique color and interesting, feathery form.
DIY home landscapers interested low-water, easy-care landscapes do not want to miss the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum plant sale this Sunday, April 28 from 9AM-1 PM at the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery. In addition to the community-beloved Arboretum All-stars—100 tough, easy-to-grow, reliable plants, tested in the arboretum for sustainability—this sale will feature 30 unusual and interesting plants that arboretum horticulturists are calling Durable Delights.
“The best plants are ones that demand little of our time, but offer a big return in form, color, flower and durability, hence the Durable Delight name,” explains Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum. Zagory adds, “While wholesale nurseries offer their customers plants in an alluring variety of colors and forms, over the years our team has learned what consistently grows here in our Valley and persists despite our hot summer, cool damp winters and sometimes heavy clay soils.”
“Some of these plants may need shade in the Central Valley, but many are able to stand up and sparkle with little irrigation in the hot summer sun,” explains Lisa Fowler, nursery manager, UC Davis Arboretum.
Beyond Durable Delights and Arboretum All-stars, customers will find a huge array plants specifically chosen for their suitability to our area’s unique growing environments, trained sales people available to make recommendations as well as stunning demonstration plantings to inspire ideas and design possibilities.
Can’t attend on Sunday? You’ve got one more chance. Saturday, May 18, the nursery will be open to the public for the last time this spring season from 9 AM – 1 PM. For more information, visit the Arboretum’s website: http://arboretum.ucdavis.edu.
Durable Delights: The List (Click here to download a .pdf; Adobe Acrobat required.)
- Agave americana ‘Variegata’, striped agave
- Delosperma cooperi, cerise hardy ice plant
- Leucophyllum frutescens ‘Compactum’ and ‘Green Cloud’, cenizo
- Muhlenbergia dubia, Mexican deergrass
- Rosmarinus officinalis ‘Mozart’, Ed Carman’s rosemary
- Saponaria × lempergii ‘Max Frei’, hybrid soapwort
- Bupleurum fruticosum, shrubby hare’s ear
- Achillea ‘Coronation Gold’, coronation gold yarrow
- Salvia clevelandii ‘Winnifred Gilman’, Winnifred Gilman Cleveland sage
- Anigozanthos ‘Amber Velvet’, The Velvet Range™ kangaroo paw
- Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Little Spire’, little spire Russian sage
- Dasylirion wheeleri, desert spoon
- Iberis sempervirens, evergreen candytuft
- Muhlenbergia capillaris, pink muhly
- Bouteloua gracilis ‘Blonde Ambition’, blonde ambition blue grama
- Salvia chamaedryoides, Mexican blue sage
- Teucrium fruticans ‘Azureum’, azure bush germander
- Beschorneria yuccoides, Mexican lily
- Geranium × cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’, Biokovo cranesbill
- Epilobium canum ‘Sierra Salmon’, Sierra salmon California fuchsia
- Carex oshimensis ‘Evergold’, variegated Japanese sedge
- Viburnum tinus ‘Anvi’, spirit viburnum
- Ajuga reptans ‘Catlin’s Giant’, Catlin’s giant bugle
- Origanum ‘Marshall’s Memory’, Marshall’s oregano
- Glandularia aristigera (Verbena tenuisecta), moss verbena
- Garrya elliptica ‘Evie’, Evie’s silktassel
- Chondropetalum tectorum, small Cape Rush
- Quercus tomentella, Island oak
- Miscanthus sinensis var. condensatus ‘Cosmopolitan’,
cosmopolitan silver grass - Juncus patens ‘Elk Blue’, elk blue California gray rush
Dig in! Shovel donations sought for city and campus art project
Artist Christopher Fennell while he was fabricating "Bats Baseball" using 600 used baseball bats for installation in Southside Park, Atlanta, Georgia in 2009.
The City of Davis and the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden offer the public, along with their old shovels, a chance to leave a permanent mark on our community as they seek to collect 400 used spades, gardening trowels, shovels of all kinds for use in a campus and city outdoor art sculpture scheduled for completion this fall. Shovel collection will occur weekdays from 8 am to 4 pm at the city offices at 1818 Fifth Street and at the Arboretum’s spring plant sales (see dates and location below) through the end of May.
Artist Christopher Fennell will take recycling to new heights at the east end of the Arboretum when he builds a 16 foot tall vine-inspired gateway out of twisted steel pipes and 400 used shovel heads. Funded by the City of Davis Municipal Arts Fund, this landmark sculpture will mark the transition between downtown Davis and the Arboretum and serve as a symbol of town-gown collaboration.
The history of this project dates back to 2011, when, at the recommendation of the Davis Civic Arts Commission, the Davis City Council unanimously approved a proposal to allocate $40,000 towards the development of a sculptural gateway feature at the east end of the Arboretum. The proposal, stewarded by Emily Griswold, director of GATEways horticulture and teaching gardens for the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, represents the first city art project on campus land.
The sculpture project dovetails with city and campus goals to improve pedestrian and bicycle circulation connections and help promote and market the campus and downtown area as an arts destination. Mayor Pro Tempore Dan Wolk has supported the project from the beginning, “I am so excited to see this project come to fruition. It will further connect downtown Davis and the campus and will serve as a focal point for residents, UC Davis students, and visitors to Davis for years to come.” (Download map showing location of sculpture. Adobe Acrobat required.)
Artist's sketches of the sculpture design.
Last year a committee of campus, city, and community representatives selected Christopher Fennell from an applicant pool of 66 artists from around the nation to design and build the sculpture. Fennell – a sculptor from Alabama with an engineering background – specializes in the creation of large scale public art from dramatic collections of cast off materials.
“At a distance this gateway will look like vine inspired ironwork, but up close the viewer will notice that the vine leaves are actually used shovel heads,” says Fennell. “The diversity of shapes, sizes, and rusty patterns on used shovel heads collected from the community will give the sculpture a richness and character that would be unattainable with new materials.”
“The use of shovels to build a sculpture in the Arboretum has special resonance because of all the shovels that have been used by staff, students, and com¬munity members to plant the garden’s collections,” says Griswold. “We’d love for donors to give a second life to their shovels through this project, but we don’t want to leave them shovel-free just as spring arrives—so, when you drop-off a shovel at one of our locations, you’ll receive a coupon from locally-owned Davis Ace Hardware good for 15% off the purchase of a new shovel. It’s a great excuse to treat yourself to a new piece of hardware!”
Director of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden and Assistant Vice Chancellor Kathleen Socolofsky is thrilled with the timing of this project, “The UC Davis Arboretum has just finished celebrating its 75th year and is moving forward as the UC Davis Arboretum & Public Garden. As we begin to plan what our future holds for the campus, city and community, this sculpture embodies the shared involvement with our region we believe will serve as a standard for all our projects, not just in the Arboretum, but throughout our university landscapes.”
The Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum will be collecting shovels for the installation at their spring plants sales. Drop off your used shovel during the dates and times listed below and stay to shop from the area’s largest selection of attractive, low-water, easy-care, region-appropriate plants.
Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum Spring Plant Sales and used shovel drive times:
SATURDAY, APRIL 6 from 9am-1pm
SUNDAY, APRIL 28 from 9am-1pm
SATURDAY, MAY 18 from 9am-1pm
Location: UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden Teaching Nursery on UC Davis campus at Garrod Drive across from the UC Davis Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital
For more information:
Christopher Fennell: http://www.cfennell.org
Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum Spring Plant Sales: http://www.arboretum.ucdavis.edu/plant_sales_and_nursery.aspx
