Twelve volunteers gathered on a cloudy afternoon last Thursday to install new plants in the grounds surrounding Votey Hall, an area covering about 3,000 square-feet on central campus. Tunes by Van Morrison, The Chicks and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band provided background music. Gavin Young, a wildlife biology major in the Rubenstein School of Natural Resources, issued gardening trowels and demonstrated for the group how deep to dig holes, how far apart to place the plugs, and how to work into soil that’s covered mostly by layers of mulch.
“To establish a big garden like this takes a lot of up front effort. But in three years it will be beautiful and won’t need to be mulched or mowed,” he says.
These volunteers—an eclectic group of students, staff and faculty members from all corners of the university—are working to create a new naturalistic garden. About 25 volunteers gathered at various times between August 19-23 to do the planting work on three sides of Votey, home of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. On Thursday they were planting mostly native iris versicolor (northern blue flags) and lobelia siphilitica (blue lobelias).Fortino Acosta from the CALS Department of Agriculture, Landscape & Environment is the faculty mentor for the project. He says the goal is to create an aesthetically pleasing garden made up of species native to the region.
Fortino Acosta from the CALS department of plant and soil sciences program is the faculty mentor for the project. He says the goal is to create an aesthetically pleasing garden made up of species native to the region.
“Naturalistic gardens require less maintenance. They do the important work of providing food and shelter for wildlife, attracting pollinators, and generally creating a more biodiverse environment,” he explains. “These gardens will also help retain water at a time when climate crisis means heavier rain in our region.”
The project supports key sustainability goals outlined in the university’s Comprehensive Sustainability Plan issued last year and the recent Planetary Health Initiative, founded on the principle that human health and civilization depends on careful stewardship of natural systems.
Funding for the $28,923 project came from the Sustainable Campus Fund, which solicits proposals each semester that build on the culture of sustainability and research on campus. The list of students who wrote the funding proposal, titled “Sustainable Landscape Design: ̽̽ Naturalistic Gardens,” reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the effort—Robert Gibson (environmental engineering), Nate Reader (political science), and Erin Camire ’24 (forestry) were all contributors. The Votey building is home to CEMS which also contributed to the project.
The Votey garden is the first step in advancing work Camire developed during her senior year as an intern in the Sustainable Solutions Lab. She created an in-depth analysis that identifies areas across campus with potential for new gardens, with plant recommendations that promote pollinators.
"The plan is to retain some of the funding for the next two years to see what’s doing well, what plants we might have to relocate,” Acosta says. “We’ll also want to cut back the plants in the fall and monitor progress.”
Acosta bought most of the plants from local nurseries which promises a greater success ratio for transplanting, lowers transportation costs to bring the plants to campus, and returns the investment to the Vermont economy.
He believes the Votey project will instruct replication on other areas of campus and serve as a valuable teaching tool in a variety of topics like water conservation, sustainable landscape design practices for biodiverse cities and urban storm water management.