Utah State University Facilities added a new garden to Logan campus.
Located between the Merrill-Cazier Library and the cience Engineering Research building, this new garden is a large ellipse of stone benches surrounding a tree. Tucked to the side is a smaller circle of the same stone benches. With wooden arch entry points and a variety of vegetation, this garden is meant to be "used as a space set apart from campus to feel a little bit more private and secure but still within campus," according to Nate Christiansen, designer and builder of the garden.
This garden is here to stay, according to Christiansen.
"We hope it will be there forever. There's a good opportunity, and it's kind of off the beat," Christiansen said. "We wanted that location because there probably won't be any buildings going in there, so hopefully it can be there for years and years to come and have the trees healthy, old and established."
Shane Richards is the landscape operation and maintenance manager for USU Facilities.
"We asked ourselves, 'What could we do to replace the willow structure and put something neat there?' We brainstormed and decided that this little sitting area was perfect for that kind of spot," Richards said.
This garden is made up of spaces to sit and commune, but there is also a diversity of plants.
"Outside the fence will be for color, but everything inside the fence will be things that you can discover or learn in a garden. We'll have lots of edible plants in there -- hopefully lots of fragrances and bright colors," Richards said. "We'll have some peach trees, some pear trees. We have some grapevines, and we'll be doing some raspberries."
The trees and plants there have not bloomed yet, which is part of why Christiansen hopes the garden is here to stay.
"The trees will probably start to be established in three years. We then will have some different annuals that come and go, and those will be ready next year, then some different perennials that will hopefully also show next year," Christiansen said.
According to Richards, the variety of plants and gardens at USU may go unnoticed, but that is partially the point of them.
"There are several different theme gardens that we have throughout all of campus, and we don't label them. We're just hoping that people can discover them, enjoy them, perhaps even wonder what they are," Richards said. "We're constantly thinking about spots that we can actually do to make it a little more fun for the students and for the faculty."
These gardens are each part of a different landscape plan. According to Richards, USU plants 5,000 bulbs each year and 60,000 annual flowers.
"We order up the bulbs every spring, get them every fall, and then we plant them everywhere we can on campus. We have quite a few deer, so a lot of them get sacrificed to the deer, but we do have these magical spots where the deer don't go," Richards said.
The annual flowers are grown and protected in their greenhouse.
"We maintain the irrigation system. We maintain the turf as far as fertilizing, mowing, weed control and insect control," Richards said. "We maintain the beds, and we're always planting the flowers."
The landscaping team will take flowers from this greenhouse and put in place many kinds of gardens throughout Logan campus.
"We take special places, and we pick out a theme, and the theme can be about as creative as we want," Richards said. "We have a night garden on campus that has flowers with some silver hairs on them, so they reflect and capture that moonlight in the nighttime. We have some that are just a variety of different flowers in that area. Next to the TSC on the north side, we have a tropical garden just for the summer, and then we take them out in the fall and put them in our greenhouse."
Amongst the other USU gardens, this new unlabeled one is meant to be enjoyed and utilized by the students for many years to come.