Environmental Education

Thanks to funding from Museums for America, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and UC Davis, the weedy field at the very east end of the Arboretum will soon be transformed to a garden featuring plants native to the lower Putah Creek watershed. The garden will feature themed plantings and interpretive signs to educate the public about regional flora and fauna, the history of the Putah Creek watershed, and how to create sustainable landscapes with native plants.

Last week the UC Davis Public Garden team put the finishing touches on the campus’s first landscape conversion project — the Shields Oak Grove Meadow. Congratulations to everyone involved in this team effort and to project manager Andrew Fulks, Director of the UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve!

The addition of Nature’s Gallery Court to the west end of the Arboretum is sure to be a draw for visitors to the campus and the Arboretum; it will serve as an example of how our UC Davis community of volunteers and sponsors supported this installation with their time, creativity and donations.

This pilot project is already well on its way to completion thanks to a collaborative group of Public Garden team members including Andrew Fulks, Director of the Riparian Reserve. who is serving as project manager for this conversion effort. Dave Klippert and his Civil and Industrial Services team are now preparing the space for its sustainable, low-maintenance landscape by removing the grass and hauling the extra dirt away so that Matt Forrest’s team from Grounds and Landscape Services can retrofit the irrigation from sprinklers to drip.

The grass on the La Rue Road medians is now prepped for removal and conversion from a high-maintenance, high-water lawn, to a low-water, low-maintenance, beautiful landscape featuring plant selections from the UC Davis Arboretum All-Star program.

Another pilot conversion project is the Arboretum meadow turf conversion at Shields Oak Grove. This project continues moving forward as well.  Initial herbicide treatments took place last week just before the storms moved in.  The next step will be a retrofit of the irrigation system, followed by seeding around November 15 with purple needlegrass, a native California grass.

On July 22nd 2011, the final stone was set in place to cap completion of the campus’s Geology GATEway Garden located on the south and east side of the Earth & Physical Sciences Building.

Did you know that the Sign Shop, formerly part of Facilities Management, is now part of Campus Planning and Community Resources? On September 22nd it moved into a newly renovated shop space located at Civil & Industrial Services’ location on Garrod Road in West Campus. This new alignment will consolidate the fabrication and printing of signage used for events, wayfinding,  street identification and traffic control.

As part of the UC Davis Public Garden Initiative, the campus will undertake a master planning effort to redesign portions of the campus landscape to save money, improve campus aesthetics, and provide more opportunities for teaching, research, and community engagement.