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.

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.

You may have noticed that we’ve installed hundreds of yards of erosion control fabric along the banks of the waterway at the west end of the Arboretum. The banks were prepped and seeded with a mixture of native grasses and covered with this material to assist in establishing the vegetation. This project is part of a partnership with UC Davis Environmental Health and Safety to improve our campus’s stormwater quality.

Thanks to a partnership Andrew Fulks, Director of the UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve and Campus Naturalized Lands, has stewarded with the UC Davis Environmental Health and Safety department (EH&S), the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden team is tackling a few landscape improvements to reduce the amount of sediment in the campus’s stormwater run-off.

The mix of meadow grasses planted last year to replace a high-maintenance, high-water lawn west of the Peter J. Shields Oak Grove continues to thrive. See photo below. (Capturing the majestic oaks before they lose their leaves also helps highlight the dramatic makeover!)

Grounds staff have sprayed the turf in the median on La Rue Road and you should see the grass turning brown.  In a couple of weeks, the turf will be removed and work will begin on retrofit of the irrigation from spray to drip.  The Arboretum staff has prepared a list of plants to be considered as CPCR Landscape Architects begin the design.  Watch for heavy equipment in November!

The Summer 2012 issue of UC Davis Magazine features the UC Davis Arboretum on the cover and inside describes the launch, mission and future of the UC Davis Public Garden Initiative and GATEways Project.

In 2003 Public Garden team members Andrew Fulks and J.P. Marié began work on the ranch to convert 50 acres from row crops to native perennial grasslands; this effort served not only to mitigate the loss of habitat for the Swainson’s Hawks and Burrowing Owls disturbed by campus construction, but also to provide researchers an area to conduct forb studies.

After a long wait and an unusually dry winter, some of the wild flowers planted along the La Rue Road median are finally putting on a show at the intersection of Russell Blvd. and La Rue Road.

Thanks to a partnership with Tree Davis, UC Davis Grounds and Landscape Services has secured a grant to receive 100 trees.