Eco-landscaping students make two new gardens

Students in Paul Wasacz’s Physical Education course, Eco-landscaping, built two new gardens on the west side of the campus over the weekend of May 4-5.

Chris Adam and Jenn de Vera from the Office of Sustainability were also both present to guide the students.

“We were able to use fillers such as large branches and stumps that were taken from felled trees on campus to use as the base of the Indigenous garden,” Jenn said. “We used fillers to take up room at the bottom of the garden, so we don’t have to use 100 per cent soil.”

Tiawenti:non Canadian of the First Peoples’ Centre will be receiving traditional/medicinal plant suggestions from the students. “Hopefully, we will plant seedlings before the end of the semester with them,” Jenn said. “The class started squash and beans from seed, which are being housed in the 4A.0 greenhouse under grow lights. Once they are bigger, we will move them to the garden. We were able to identify a ground bee that was in the garden on Saturday! We are increasing biodiversity on campus one plant at a time, one bug at a time…”

One of the Phys. Ed. students, Angela from the First Peoples’ Centre, planted the first plants of blood root and fern in the Hugel garden.

The new garden locations are:

• Garden 1: NEW indigenous garden (new name to be determined). Located by lift gates near security.
• Garden 2 Hugel Garden built along Wood Avenue.

Building the Indigenous garden

Building the Hugel Garden along Wood Avenue side of campus