September 25, 2007
Enter the garden of knowledge
Studying for a biology test under the shade of a living fossil from the Mesozoic Era, its fan-shaped leaves a relic of the age of dinosaurs. . . Reading by a burbling pond where ducks touch down and water lilies float. . . Catching a glimpse of a fawn, half hidden in the shrubbery. . .
Memories are made every day at AU. And they’re set amid the lush greenery and vibrant life of a campus that is also an arboretum.
AU has a sense of place that reflects Washington, D.C., but it’s not the Washington of crowded pavements or formal buildings. It’s a Washington of cherry trees, exploding around you like pink fireworks. It’s a Washington scented with magnolia in the spring, and crackling with Halloween-colored leaves in the autumn.
An arboretum, in today’s parlance, is not simply a group of trees. It is also a botanical garden, a collection of plants, shrubs, and trees that is thoughtfully designed and tended, and teaches the community about the natural world.
AU was designated an arboretum and public garden in 2004. But the AU arboretum is not a separate place, set apart from daily life. It is the entire campus.
It is the bustling greensward of the main quad, where students soak up the sun by a swath of purple asters, and frisbees zip past a wide-girthed scarlet oak older than the campus itself.
It is the wisteria arbor behind Battelle-Tompkins, and the canopy of crepe myrtle by Bender Arena.
It is the sunken outdoor amphitheater, where gatherings and classes are held among such primeval trees as the dawn redwood, known only from Mesozoic fossils until the discovery of a surviving patch in China, and the gingko, whose pedigree dates back 270 million years.
It is the hidden nooks and crannies for quiet reading or intimate conversations, like the grove by Roper Hall, with its soothing waterfall and a parrotia tree that hails from Iran. Or the arc of forested coolness by McDowell Hall where rustic benches, carved from a fallen scarlet oak that graced the campus for more than a century, nestle discretely along the banks of a trickling creek beloved by birds.
The creek is a new creation, built to restore an unsightly gully and protect the land from erosion. Like so many of the elements in AU’s arboretum, it is designed with a many-layered purpose: beauty, education, and stewardship of nature.
Seasonal show
AU’s seasonal show begins in spring with the lacy gold of the cornelian cherries by the library, and swells into a warm-weather symphony of color until the crisp air of fall arrives, and with it, the reddening leaves of native dogwood and the last bold crimson of the all-surrounding roses.
All year there are bold strokes of shape and texture, like the wheat-brown poufs of ornamental grass, or the hardy banana that lends a tropical flourish to a difficult spot by the library above a tangle of buried utility lines. And there are subtle tones as well, like the chartreuse tufts of Japanese sedge and the silvery sweeps of mountain mint.
The average student may not know that the slender tree with brilliant fall foliage behind McCabe Hall is a rare Franklinia, one of barely 2,000 descendants of a tree found in 1765 by friends of Benjamin Franklin as they explored the Georgia wilderness. The trees died out in the wild; only the descendants of the seed they planted in their Philadelphia garden survived, including the tree at AU.
But students in an environmental science class may learn about the trees on a tour led by the landscape architects. Student artists might be inspired by the multitoned bark of the crepe myrtle or the shaggy red bark of the dawn redwood. And thousands of students smile for the camera each year under the Korean cherry trees by the School of International Service, the saucer magnolia by the Eagle sculpture at Bender Arena, and by the countless other spots that glow with color.
Neighbors, too, stroll the campus to enjoy its tranquility, and sometimes stop to compliment the groundskeepers. And students of landscape architecture from as far as North Carolina come for guided tours, as have groups from the National Park Service, National Arboretum, Smithsonian Institution, National Zoo, and numerous professional organizations.
The goal
“We’ve come a long way,” says landscape architect Mike Mastrota, “but we have a long way to go.” The free-flowing paths that wind through healthy gardens today are a far cry from the straight, no-nonsense sidewalks that carved up the largely grass-and-concrete campus even a decade ago.
Yet the quad is still squared off by 24-foot asphalt roads, a holdover from the ’50s and ’60s, when students parked their T-Birds and Mustangs at the steps of the classroom buildings. The roads have evolved into walkways, and are only open to service vehicles, but they still eat up much of the landscape, along with the gratuitous sidewalks that flank them.
AU planners envision a more leisurely scene of curving sidewalks in natural pavers or bluestone, enhancing the relaxed mood of the quad. But that will have to await the future. For the moment, the changes are subtle: herbicide-free lawn care, a computerized irrigation system that responds to humidity and weather reports to minimize wasted water, and an approach to landscaping that emphasizes the natural look.
“There is a difference between a landscape and a garden,” says landscape architect Paul Davis. “Landscaping is when you plant a few things in front of a building and call it a day. A garden is multilayered. It shows the beauty of nature.”
As a daily matter, it’s a subtle influence, peaceful and pervasive. Studies show that a tranquil landscape is good for emotional health and contentment. The people behind AU’s arboretum hope it will have precisely that influence on the students, faculty, and staff who pause in shady groves to relax by the sound of running water, and watch the birds splash by the water lilies.
“It shows the university really cares,” Mastrota says.
And it’s a gift to the future. “We have 2,000 trees we’re responsible for,” Davis says. “What we do today will be carried on to the next generation.”
