Student lives are transformed through their work with the Arboretum; dozens of students are involved every year through work or internships with the Arboretum’s Learning by Leading initiative. These unique hands-on opportunities do more than benefit the students’ careers, their leadership projects add richness to the Arboretum experience, they improve our outreach efforts, and they leverage staff resources.

As the result of a collaboration between the UC Davis Arboretum  and Public Garden and the UC Davis Department of Design, the arboretum and other parts of the Davis campus will become student galleries for Ann Savageau’s “Sustainable Design” class.

Professor Robin Hill’s students created and installed four public art pieces last week in the arboretum and on the main campus; the installations are scheduled to stay in place until around December 21.

Throughout November and December volunteers from student groups, community members, local Rotary Clubs as well as our long-term and loyal UC Davis Arboretum volunteers, have come out to the future site of the UC Davis California Native Plant GATEway Garden to help plant thousands of native grasses. We cannot thank them enough. Their investment in this educational and community resource is very much appreciated. We could not manage these large-scale improvements without their help.

Unless you are familiar with all the methods used to ensure that the campus’s stormwater is as pollutant-free as possible, you may have wondered why we bother spreading straw around empty lots. Spreading straw mulch, moistening it, then crimping it into the dirt is one of the ways we can protect exposed soil during the winter months, prevent erosion, and improve stormwater quality—all legal responsibilities that need to be complied with and monitored regularly—especially on a campus of our size.

It’s open! On Sunday, October 27, 2013 community members, donors and stakeholders from the campus and city gathered to dedicate the “Shovel Gateway”—a sculpture created from over 400 community-donated shovels.

Throughout the month of October, artist Chris Fennell will be creating a sculpture from community-donated shovels—but why shovels? The idea for creating a vine-inspired gateway germinated in Fennell’s mind years ago; the delay in seeing his vision realized was the result of not having found the perfect location. It wasn’t until he read about the Davis Civic Arts Commission’s request for proposal for the development of a gateway landmark between the City of Davis and the UC Davis Arboretum that he knew his search was over—he just had to convince the selection committee. His sell, as it turns out, was easy.

Throughout spring, our team has been busy creating visitor-friendly front doors with large maps sprinkled throughout major campus entry-points and visitor parking lots.

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.

DIY home landscapers interested low-water, easy-care landscapes do not want to miss the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum plant sale.

The UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden Team offers some landscape design tips as well as some advice on how to take care of your lawn.

The City of Davis and UC Davis Arboretum will host a community meeting on Saturday, March 2nd from 1:00 to 3:00 pm to gather public feedback on planned improvements to the Putah Creek Parkway and the east end of the Arboretum. The improvements will include new native plantings, removal of invasive plants, new pathways and benches, habitat enhancement for wildlife and pollinators, wayfinding and educational signage, and safety and visibility enhancements. For the first hour of the event, from 1:00 to 2:00 pm, participants will walk the site with project designers.

In collaboration with Campus Planning and Community Resources, the UC Davis Conference and Event Services staff are helping the campus install new outdoor campus maps.

Two “green” walls were unveiled on Wednesday, December 12 by the Landscape Architecture students. They were designed to feature a variety of Arboretum All-Stars. Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum assisted the students with their plant selections.

The City of Davis, the UC Davis Arboretum, and a number of partners have recently been awarded a grant of $891,304 from the California Strategic Growth Council for the Downtown Davis Parkway Greening Project. The 5-acre project area includes 3.5 acres along the Putah Creek Parkway, where a bike path west of Olive Drive connects the bike tunnel under I-80 with the bike tunnel under the railroad tracks.