Fay Seirafi/The Mossy Log
Spring at Lewis & Clark is impossible to miss. Irises, daffodils, magnolias and tulips have been blooming over the last month. Coming off a long and rainy winter, seeing color return to campus is a highlight of the semester for many students. Though spring brings final exams, projects and overpriced plane tickets, it also delivers some of nature’s most stunning flora.
But this is not all nature’s work. The LC groundskeeping team within facilities services tends to the campus landscape year-round. Spring is a time when their planning and hard work dividing root clumps, planting cuttings, laying wood chips and building soil health, comes to fruition. Chris Larsen joined as an LC groundskeeper this past fall.
“Spring has been really fun,” Larsen sad in an interview with The Mossy Log. “I’ve gotten to see a lot of projects take shape that I did in the fall, and it just looked like nothing — just things living underground. And so to get to see some of this stuff take shape has been really fun. And it’s been the culmination of a lot of hard work that I did over the winter and early part of the spring and fall too.”
Dylan Carlson, who is another groundskeeper, comes from a background in large-scale ecological restoration. When planting plants, he carefully considers the species of plants, whether or not they are native to Oregon, and their blooming periods. Early blooming native plants like Oregon grape and red currants grow alongside Douglas aster and golden rod, which will flower long into spring and summer months.
“(The groundskeeping team is) thinking about the bloom timing of different native plants,” Carlson told The Mossy Log. “(We are) trying to have things blooming throughout the season, instead of a lot of pretty plants that bloom in May and June and then kind of fizzle.”
The groundskeeping team is unified by their philosophies surrounding creativity, native plants and pesticide usage. Individual team members are able to propose planting projects for certain areas of campus. Their creativity contributes to the layout and designs of the botanical installments around campus. LC groundskeeper, Skylar Smith, has worked in a variety of landscaping positions and enjoys the “solitude” of working in nature.
“I love the freedom that I have to pretty much do things to my aesthetic standards and then… tweak it, depending on the feedback I get,” Smith explained. “I do a lot of transplanting and dividing and seed collecting, so there’s just a lot of freedom in this job, especially compared to other landscaping jobs.”
The creative freedom that is extended to groundskeepers operates within a larger philosophy about sustainability. The groundskeeping team is dedicated to a more “organic” approach to land care.
“We’re really cutting back on herbicides and pesticides and synthetic fertilizers,” Larsen said. “We’re working with the relationships between plants and animals and soil, supporting soil microbes to improve soil fertility, and to improve plant health, which improves the plants resistance to pests and disease that might otherwise harm them.”
This more organic practice mainly involves allowing nature to do its own thing. Wood chips and leaf litter are intentionally left to decompose in certain areas, which creates numerous benefits for the local campus ecosystem.
“Those leaves will break down over time and contribute organic matter to the soil. That organic matter becomes a food source for microorganisms that live in the soil,” Larson shared. “Those microorganisms can capture a lot of nitrogen and a lot of carbon dioxide and retain it in the soil. So the soil becomes really healthy, but it’s also a sink for carbondioxidewhenit’smanagedwell, so 100% that’s intentional.”
Healthy, microorganism rich soil provides an ideal habitat for insects, bumblebees and even salamanders which are a delicate species which has slowly returned to areas on campus previously stripped by chemicals and pesticides. Chloe Flora, another groundskeeper, feels positively about this shift, stating that the move towards organic land practices is aligned with her own values.
“(The team is) working with the relationships between plants and animals and soil, supporting soil microbes to improve soil fertility and plant health,” Flora said to The Mossy Log.
She considers the return of salamanders to be a major milestone for soil health.
“Whenever you find a salamander, you can really feel good about this area, it’s clearly healthy,” she said.
For students who want to see some of this work up close, below are a few plants currently in bloom.
Solomon’s seal – behind Howard Residence Hall
Just behind Howard Residence Hall, on the slope into the ravine lives a patch of Polygonatum also known as Solomon’s seal. It is a plant worth stopping for — vibrant green with long delicate leaves and hanging circular blooms. Larsen planted this patch of Solomon’s seal after finding a misplaced clump of the plant. He divided it into 40 plants and planted them along the slope, where it is currently thriving. Solomon’s seal is a native plant and is well-suited to the partial shade of its current home. It is a great example of why native plants thrive in their natural habitat: they are low maintenance and beautiful.
Irises – Surrounding Platt Residence Hall
Irises are a springtime favorite for many and the ones on campus are hard to miss. Flora names them as her favorite.
“I always love the irises we have on campus; that’s my favorite plant, my favorite flower to begin with, so I am biased,” Flora said.
For readers looking to see more of these beautiful purple blooms, keep a close eye on the ornamental beds near Platt-Howard as spring progresses.
Honeywort — in front of Albany Quadrangle
Honeywort or Cerinthe Major, is one of the more unique plants blooming on campus. Smith planted the patch of honeywort in front of Albany after she received them from a fellow groundskeeper, Jeanette Nikola, who propagated the plants in her home.
“She gave me some little bunches,” Smith recalled. “They’ve just gotten huge. So some things you plant, and they do nothing, they vanish, and things like overtake them. You never see them again. Some things just thrive. And it’s really fun to see what does what.”
Those “little bunches” now take up a large portion of the bed in front of Albany. Honeywort’s flowers are a beautiful shade of indigo contrasted by their bright green stems. For any students heading to their advising meetings, take a closer look at the flower bed out front.
The blooms sprouting right now are the result of the hard work done by both Mother Nature and the groundskeeping team. Some of the flora seen on campus were planted last fall, while some of it has been thriving for decades. Spring is a time when the toil of the community finally takes shape and color. Whether that is students finishing their semester of classes, seniors moving on to their post-grad lives or the patches of Solomon’s seal shooting up behind Howard, spring is the time to reap what has been sown.
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