If you haven’t visited the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden in a while you may notice that there are areas ready for new plantings. That’s because a large part of the area was fenced off for an adjacent construction project to accommodate our Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital’s large animal blood donors! They used to be located across the street, but now, we welcome our new naaaay-bors — horses, cows, goats and llamas. These animals provide blood, and even rumen (a natural probiotic collected from the largest of a cow’s four stomach compartments), to animals receiving treatment in the hospital. They are all heroes! 

To visit, follow a decomposed-granite pathway that leads directly from our Storer garden and continues along the pens that house animals critical to the health and recovery of so many others. Because the area is getting more traffic, thanks to its furry residents,  we plan to work with our partners at the Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital to create signage similar to the other interpretive signs found throughout  other campus GATEway gardens that showcase UC Davis expertise out in the environment. 

In addition to these changes, look forward to more landscape renovations in the area!

Keeping the animals comfort in mind, more trees will be planted in the pens for shade. Students from our Learning by Leading™ Sustainable Horticulture program plan to landscape under the pine trees along the road, lastly — with additional funding — we hope to install irrigation in the corral closest to the Storer Garden — the one that currently sits vacant — so it can become an “Enrichment Pasture” where animal residents can visit for a change of scenery and other activities.

Next time you stop by the west end of the Arboretum or attend one of our plant sales nearby, we hope you'll extend your trip to include visit to the Large Animal Blood Donor Facility.