The Society of Conservation Biology, in collaboration with the Student Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects Club, plan to renovate the Pollinator Garden located along Paradise Trail and across from the Guy Wicks Field.
The Pollinator Garden was originally established by SCB in 2018 as part of the “Pollinate the Palouse” Sustainable Initiatives Fund Project, intending to improve campus sustainability by establishing a native Palouse prairie patch on campus that would support local pollinators.
This revitalization of the Pollinator Garden is also funded by the Student Sustainability Cooperative’s Sustainable Initiatives Funds. SCB and SCASLA received $5,000 for the project.
SCB and SCASLA plan to revitalize a 6,000-square-foot section of the Pollinator Garden by removing invasive species and weeds from the garden and re-establishing native plants, which will encourage and support pollinators such as solitary bees, butterflies, other insects and hummingbirds.
The completed Pollinator Garden, designed by SCASLA, will feature the pre-existing semi-circle shape and continuation of the original design. It will also include hexagonal plant beds, bee hotels, rainwater collection, an education area and drip irrigation. Plants within the plant beds will also be different, so visitors to the garden can see which plants certain pollinators are interested in.
Some of the plants SCB plans to include in the Pollinator Garden are badland mule’s ear, Indian blanket flower, kinnikinnick, huckleberry, red osier dogwood, western larch, milkweed, wyeth buckwheat and Oregon checker mallow.
According to Steve Lemeshko, the President of SCB, he was inspired by a guest lecture given by Landscape Architecture Professor Roberto Capecci to see if any landscape architecture students would be interested in the project. Capecci was able to put Lemeshko in contact with SCASLA President J.W. Fay.
“When Steve [Lemeshko] contacted me, we kind of defined our roles as SCASLA being the designers of this space and SCB being the ecology practice behind it. It’s been fun to collaborate with them, we meet a lot,” Fay said.
With the garden, Lemeshko and Fay hope to support and bring education, awareness and inspiration to the Palouse prairie ecosystem, which is currently one of the most endangered ecosystems in the United States, with less than 1% of its original habitat remaining. They emphasized their goal to inspire others to adopt native gardening practices that can support local plants and pollinators.
“The primary objective of this garden is to inspire people, inspire communities, to see that this is something that is possible and maybe something they can have,” Lemeshko said. “This project is not a one-season thing. It’s going to take us a couple of years to establish those plants. They will start small, but the beauty of those plants is that, once they get established, they don’t need much and are very beautiful. They support local pollinators and they support local insects that have been struggling a lot.”
SCB and SCASLA also plan to add butterfly host plants, a hummingbird feeder and nametags for plants to provide further education for visitors.
Lemeshko commented on the importance of collaboration when undertaking this project.
“I really like the nature of this project because we’re doing this collaboration and I don’t think one club could do it by itself,” Lemeshko said. “Right now, we’re working with Facilities, the Student Sustainability Cooperative and with some other professors. We are also going to have other clubs join us to help because this project is so big. It’s a crosspollination of ideas and thoughts of how we can make this space beautiful.”
Besides other clubs, SCB and SCASLA welcome anyone who is interested in helping to volunteer at their events, highlighting the importance of biodiversity and campus sustainability. There are two more events this semester on April 12 and 26 from 12-3 p.m. Gloves, gardening tools and refreshments will be provided to volunteers who attend the events.
For more information, SCB and SCASLA can be found on Instagram at @uidaho.scb and @uidaho.scasla.
Georgia Swanson can be reached at arg-news@uidaho.edu.