SRU garden sprouts from idea, about to take flight
SLIPPERY ROCK — It's been two years in the making, but the front yard at Slippery Rock University's Leadership Development Center is becoming a little bit of heaven for butterflies, hummingbirds and a variety of indigenous plants.
And the Butterfly and Hummingbird Garden could provide the seed for the reintroduction of threatened plant species and an innovative gardening technique across the university campus.
In 2015, Erin Strain, director of SRU leadership development at the LDC, and Brian Ringler, a member of SRU's facilities and planning department, began transforming the LDC's front yard on the northeast corner of campus into the garden using an environmentally friendly “lasagna method.”
The two decided to collaborate on a more innovative landscape for the center where Strain is in charge of professional development for the university's faculty and staff and running leadership labs for students.
Ringler said eight layers of newspaper were placed on top of the existing grass and then covered with corrugated cardboard in May 2015. Eight inches of hardwood mulch was placed on top of that, and the 70-by-38 -foot plot was allowed to “bake” until September.
In designing the garden, the pair settled on a design promoted by iConserve that incorporates 16 different types of native perennials and three different types of native shrubs to provide a welcoming habitat for both the hummingbirds and butterflies.
Ringler and Strain said they both encountered some skepticism when the garden was first laid out.
“But you have to view it as the garden is now in its junior year,” said Strain. “In 2019, it will be a senior and ready to graduate.”
And by that, they mean, the plants in the garden will be budding and plants will have to be split up and transplanted.
In the meantime, bees and butterflies, and, it is hoped, soon more hummingbirds, will be visiting the garden during the summer.
Read the full story in Sunday's Butler Eagle.
