PLANTING THE SEED:
THE NATIVE PLANTS GARDEN AND THE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE OF LANDSCAPING ON CAMPUS
INTRODUCTION
Over the past few years the University of Chicago has been making slow but steady progress in the area of sustainability. Some major advances include the creation of a Sustainability Council in 2004 and its incorporation into the Office of the Vice-President in 2006, and successful student-led intitiatives -- ranging from campaigns to purchase clean energy for residence halls, to workshops aimed at greening departmental offices, to the building of a wind turbine -- aimed at improving and raising awareness about environmental responsibility on campus. But there is still a long way to go. Recently, the Sustainable Endowment Institute gave the University a grade of D+ on its College Sustainability Report Card, a sign that more change needs to occur.
In this report, I analyze a current project aimed at improving and expanding the University's Native Plants Garden and address how the garden can best be used to address the issue of sustainability in landscape design on campus. To this end, I put forth a plan that will allow the Native Plants Garden to be comprehensively compared with more conventional landscaping choices.
A SHOWCASE GARDEN
The Native Plants Garden currently occupies a small plot of land between Rockerfeller Chapel and the Oriental Institute on the corner of 58th St. and Woodlawn Ave. Planted and maintianed by a small group of students and interested faculty, the garden has historically attracted little attention due to its small scale, scanty/haphazard plantings, and peripheral location. Recently, however, a group of students led by 4th year environmental studies major Alison Nemirow have been trying to transform the garden from a pet project of a few environmentally conscious individuals to a showcase garden. [to view Alison's proposal see SG Native Plants proposal.doc] Money was raised ($500 from the Chicago Conservation Corps program, another $500 from the Greencorps Chicago program, and about $6,000 from the Student Government New Initiatives Fund), a landscape architect specializing in indigenous plants (Keith G. Nowowski of Clarence Davids and Company) hired, and a new layout for the garden drawn up. The new plan more than doubles the size of the garden and incorporates plants from a variety of Illinois ecosystems, including prairie, woodland, and oak savanna. [for a complete listing of plants see NATIVE PLANT BED.doc] The students are still waiting on the final approval of several campus planning committees and are still seeking to raise about $6,000 more either from the University or from the Woman's Board, but the hope is that they can begin digging and planting the garden this September with the help of the Clarence and Davids crew. Eventually, educational signs will be added to the garden to provide visitors with more information on the plants it contains.
New plan for Native Plants Garden -- plan and concepts therein are sole property of Clarence Davids & Co.
The stated goals of the Native Plants Garden include the enhancement of student life through the creation of "a campus sanctuary" and the improvement of community relations as people from Hyde Park are invited to help work in or just visit the plot. Its primary purpose, however, is to function as a showcase garden, one to which landscapers at the University and the surrounding community can look to see the benefits of incorporating native plants into all aspecs of their landscape design. Because they are adapted to life in Illinois, native plants do not require irrigation [WILL THEY HOLD TO THIS NO IRRIGATION POLICY?] or the use of artificial pesitcides or fertilizers. Moreover, they may increase biodiversity by attracting the indigenous animals and insects that rely on them. However, if we are to prove that the Native Plants Garden is truely more sustainable than conventional gardens, a plan that allows for the quantitative comparison of the two methods must be put in place.
PROPOSAL
The plan I put forth involves the compilation of data on the environmental and social effects of the Native Plants Garden on the one hand and of a second campus garden or landscaped space on the other. This second site will serve as the "control" against which the Native Plants Garden can be compared, it thus should not differ too greatly in size or prominance of location, but should be planted mostly with non-native plants. Over the course of a year, both of these sites will be closely monitored for the following 5 "sustainability factors":
Fertilizer use
Fertilizers contain large quantities of phosphates and nitrates -- nutrients that plants need to grow and thrive. However, these same compounds that are so beneficial to plants can be harmful to nearby bodies of water. Excess nutrients, those not consumed by vegetation, seep into the ground water and eventually wash into the nearest stream, river, lake, or ocean. There they provide food for another kind of plant -- algea -- which AFTER DEATJ is fed on by bacteria in the water. This bacteria may endanger the health of aquatic life or of people who use the water recreationally. Or it may, if present in very high concentrations, suck almost all of the oxygen out of the water -- a process called eutrophication. Indeed, the enormous quantity of nutrients washed off of fertilized farmland along the Mississippi River have created a anaerobic "dead zone"at its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico.
Fertilizer is widely used throughout the University, especially on turf. However, efforts have been made to reduce its environmental impact. Facilities has switched from the use of petroleum-based products to more natural alternatives of chicken manure and a product called Malorginite that is made from Milwaukee's dehydrated sewer sludge. Additionally, strategies such as setting mowers to allow grass clippings to fall to the ground (thus providing natural fertilization and protection to the turf), and applying fertilizers during times-of-day and seasons when they will "best be assimilated into the environment" help to decrease the amount of fertilizer needed. Despite these efforts at mitigation, as Bumstead (grounds manager) has pointed out the fertilizers used in campus landscaping are still "basically pure Nitrogen," a substance that can have major environmental consequences when it eventually enters Lake Michigan as runoff.
Indigenous plants, on the other hand, do not require any fertilizer. Thus there are no plans to use any fertilizer in the Native Plants Garden.
Pesticide/herbicide use
Pesticides and herbicides may contain compounds that are detrimental to human or to ecosystem health. In Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring she wrote about how DDT, a compound found in pesticides, had worked its way up the food chain, bioaccumulating or increasing in concentration at every level until it was enough to weaken the shells of eagle eggs. Although DDT has been banned, chemical pesticides and herbicides still contain substances that may have unforseen effects on human and animal life.
Herbicides are used liberally on newly installed turf with the understanding that once the turf is raised to a certain quality it will require the application of less chemicals in the future. Pesticides, on the other hand, are used only on an "as-needed basis" and never preemptively. Information on the types of herbicides and pesticides used still needs to be obtained, as some are more dangerous than others.
There are no plans to use either herbicides or pesticides in the Native Plants Garden. Weeds will be removed by hand during seasonal work days. Moreover, many of the plants chosen for the garden grow quite densely, leaving little room for weeds once they are established. As far as pesticide use, we plan to address needs as they arise. Many insects will be tolerated, even encouraged, as part of the garden's mini-ecosystems. Thus caterpillars and aphids will be allowed to munch on milkweed PROVIDED FOR THEM, etc. BIRDS IN TURN CAN EAT THE CATERPILLARS
Water use
Even though water is not (yet) a scarce resource in Chicago due to its proximity to Lake Michigan, it is still important to conserve. The Alliance for the Great lakes, an organization that works to improve and maintain the environmental quality of the lakes, puts it: "When we use Lake Michigan water inefficiently, we abuse the resource and send a message to others who may be interested in withdrawing Lake Michigan water from outside of the basin, or even the country, that it can be taken regardless of the ecological effects." For more information on the importance of conserving water in the great lakes region, please see the Alliance for the Great Lakes website.
All landscaped areas on campus are irrigated by an automatic sprkinkler system. There is currently no way to monitor how much water this system actually uses, as water meters monitor outflow from the sewers and not inflow. However, steps have been taken to minimize water use. Drip irrigation systems have been installed where possible. These systems use between one and two gallons per minute, as oppose to between ten and fifteen gallons as with older system. Sprinklers are on automatic timers, only 10% of which currently have rain sensors. The result is that many landscaped areas are watered even when there is ample precipitation.
Indigenous plants are adapted to Illinois climate and thus do not need to be irrigated. They can survive periods of drought as well as the occasional torrential downpour. For this reason, we are requesting that no sprinkler system be installed by the Native Plants Garden.
Wildlife/biodiversity
Prairies are one of the most biodiverse ecoregions in the world, with a total species richness index of 2,095 -- much higher than any other region in the US. However, biodiversity has rapidly declined in the Midwest due to habitat destruction. By planting native plant species we preserve not only floral biodiversity, but also faunal. The Native Plants Garden will hopefully attract a variety of birds and insects. For example, rattlesnake master supports gelechiid larvae moths, milkweed supports monarch caterpillers and butterflies, perhaps even bobolinks, dickcissels, meadow larks and other grassland birds will occassionally be spotted among the bluestem and the switch grass. Any of these creatures would provide a welcome change from the squirrels and pigeons usually seen around campus.
Public use
The Native Plants Garden is aimed not just at environmental but also at social sustainability. Thus the ways that the members of the University and the Hyde Park community interact with the the space is an important thing to be taken into consideration.
Students and other members of the University make frequent use of the landscaped areas around campus. When the weather is pleasant, people may be seen playing games, pic-nicing, or reading on the lawns. Little effort, however, has been made to welcome people from the neighborhood into these spaces.
The Native Plants Garden is designed to be a place to both relax and learn. A mulched path will allow people to wander through, rather than just by the beds, and a bench donated by the University will allow people to rest and enjoy the view. Signs will allow visitors to learn more about the garden and about native plants more generally. However, the garden will reach out not just to passers by. It will be made available as a teaching tool -- a place where local student and community groups can come to learn more about native plants and wildlife. It will also serve as a space where volunteers can actually engage in the maintenance of the garden.
CONCLUSION
I have included some projections on how the Native Plants Garden might compare with conventional landscaped areas on campus in my outline of these 5 sustainability factors, but a monitoring program would generate data that would allow for a more complete analysis. Such a program would involve finding out the exact types and quantities of pesticides and herbicides used at the control site and at the Native Plants Garden, and the exact amounts of water (in excess of precipitation) used at both sites, weekly cataloguing of birds, insects, and small mammals observed at both sites, and weekly cataloguing of the number of University and Hyde Park community members at both sites and their activities. Most of this data could easily be collected by students from one of the environmental clubs on campus, although it would require the cooperation of Facilities Services and especially of director of landscaping Richard Bumstead.
The project I have outlined is meant to complement Native Plants Garden's role as "showcase." The Native Plants Garden should outperform the conventional garden on all counts, proving that gardening with native plants is a more sustainable approach to landscaping. The data collected through this monitoring program should be compiled in a final report that can be presented at Sustainability Council meeting and posted to the council's website, thus allowing other individuals and institutions access to information on the benefits of incorporating native plants into own gardens.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.