Proposed Sustainable Landscaping Policy at the

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

 

Statement of Philosophy

 

In 2003, Chancellor Thomas George of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) signed the Talloires Declaration thereby joining a growing list of hundreds of universities around the world committed to the concepts of sustainability. The proclamation carries with it an obligation to pursue sustainability practices and promote sustainability in university functions and the larger community.

 

Landscaping sustainably – i.e., using appropriate environmentally friendly technologies, strategically placing plant material for best water, energy, and erosion management, and using a diverse palette of native plants – is one way to express the commitment in a highly visible way. By removing all invasive exotic plants from campus grounds and committing to optimizing the use of native plants in the future, the university ideally will not serve as a pathway for the introduction of exotic plants to the regional flora. By strategically placing plants in the right locations, the university will capitalize on the energy efficiency of plants as shade and wind breaks. Through better designs the university could improve the quality of the water that passes through campus into aquifers and surface water. Through better management, the university could reduce costs by avoiding the use of toxic inputs associated with fossil fuel powered equipment, pest control, and fertilization. Finally, by landscaping responsibly, the university would help cultivate an ecologically based sense-of-place in the larger community.

 

Rationale

 

Like most contemporary human activities, landscaping relies on many unsustainable practices that negatively impact our environment including air and water quality, soils, biodiversity, and human health. Consider the following statistics from Bormann et al. (1993) for the United States:

 

  • about a third of urban water consumption in the east and 60 % in the west go to residential irrigation;
  • we use some 600 million gallons of gasoline annually in lawn mowers;
  • in California, emissions from yard machinery are equal to those from 3.5 million cars (of the 1991 model year) driven 16,000 miles each;
  • we spend three quarters of a billion dollars annually on chemical pesticides for yards and we use ten times or more of these pesticides per urban acre than per agricultural acre when considering all agricultural land;
  • over 60 % of all pesticides in the state of Connecticut are used on urban yards;
  • a quarter of our fertilizer profits come from residential applications;
  • we use more synthetic fertilizers on our yards than India (the entire country of a billion people!) uses in agriculture;
  • we spend more money to manage an acre of lawn in many urban areas than we do on an acre of corn.

 

As first approximations to quantify certain aspects of landscaping in the U.S., the margin of error for these statistics is likely quite high; nevertheless, they point to some of the relevant issues that society should address as it considers sustainability.

 

Focusing on biodiversity, like much of the world, exotic plants have invaded Wisconsin’s flora. Presently, about 28 % of the state’s wild-growing plant species are not native to the state. Although not all exotic plant species are invasive in natural communities, it is estimated that about 10% of all naturalized exotics in the U.S. are currently invasive, and some are found on UWSP’s campus (e.g., Norway maple – Acer platanoides). Some of the percentages of exotic plants in regional floras are alarming: nearly half in New Zealand (Heywood, 1989), 44 % in Hawaii, 43 % in the British Isles, 28 % in Ontario, Canada (Wilson, 1999), and a third in Florida. Globally, nonnative taxa collectively pose one of the most serious environmental challenges (CEC 2001; Van Driesche and Van Driesche, 2000). In the U.S., the 7,000 naturalized exotic plant and animal species are among the most serious threats to biodiversity in the country (UCS, n.d.; Westbrooks, 1998). In fact, exotics are tied to about half of endangered and threatened species in the U.S. compared to less than a quarter for pollution (Wilcove et al., 1998). Although landscaping is not the only pathway for exotic species to enter natural areas, it has been an important factor and will likely increase with the expansion of exurbanization and further forest fragmentation.

 

Definitions*

 

Native plant – A plant is native to the places that it naturally occurs – i.e., where it evolved and/or naturally migrated into and remains or would have remained in the absence of human impacts, like urban development.

 

Exotic plant – An exotic plant, also referred to as alien, introduced, non-indigenous, or non-native, is one that was introduced by humans, intentionally or otherwise through human agency, from one ecoregion to another. An exotic that has escaped into surrounding natural areas and is reproducing on its own in the regional flora is considered naturalized. Those naturalized exotic species that spread rapidly in the flora are considered invasive. Naturalized exotics that are not spreading quickly, but have a deleterious effect on native biota are viewed as noxious, pestiferous, or simply problematic. Naturalized plants that appear benign can become troublesome with ecological changes. At a minimum, naturalized exotic plants that otherwise appear innocuous at a minimum competitively exclude native plants, thereby reducing the potential native gene pool.

 

Note: These definitions are somewhat limited because of our inability to understand human impacts of the distant past. This is not to say that we abandon the native plant concept, because while our early impacts on plant distributions were indeed important, they differ significantly enough from more recent impacts for us to make meaningful distinctions between them and give reason to use the concept for land management and pedagogical purposes. The relevant distinctions between the distant and recent pasts relate to: the relative state of ecological degradation, the rates of our impacts, the spatial scales that we operate on, the size of the human population, our understanding of the issues, and our ability to choose among many paths with different future outcomes.

 

*For more detailed definitions see: FAQs on Native and Exotic Plants and 'Native Landscaping'.

 

General Policy Statements on Campus Landscaping

 

To improve campus sustainability, the university will:

  • move toward enhancing biological diversity through the wise use of native taxa in future campus plantings to the extent possible, with a principle exception reserved for pedagogical reasons – e.g., to train forestry professionals – and in the event that the campus permits food gardens to be established;
  • strive to reduce mowed turf areas in favor of self mulching natural areas (e.g., with ground covers, vegetated beds) to the extent possible;
  • minimize the use of petroleum inputs and eliminate toxins to the extent possible to maintain campus grounds;
  • strive to maximize the energy efficiency and water quality benefits of landscaping;
  • evaluate all future planting efforts on campus within the context of the above items.

 

Specific Policy Commitments and Guiding Principles

 

ü       maximize the use of a diverse palette of native plants when embarking on new planting projects

ü       maximize the use of local sources of native plant material to the extent possible

ü       utilize the widest genetic base among individual species as possible (e.g., when buying one species of oaks, try to ensure that the trees do not come from a narrow genetic base)

ü       utilize natives in campus plantings to the extent possible with exceptions for:

o        pedagogical reasons (e.g., training forestry professionals or historical gardens)

o        turf areas (unless acceptable native turf grasses are available)

o        “working landscapes” (e.g., vegetable gardens)

o        replacing lost functional ecological elements where native plant substitutes are lacking

ü       eliminate existing exotic species as appropriate through:

o        attrition

o        removal of invasive exotic species as resources permit

o        replacement with natives when campus projects require new plant material

ü       maximize precipitation benefits to the extent possible through the use of rain gardens, catchment and retention basins (that can also filter runoff), and other technologies

ü       explore the possibility of accessing recycled, gray water as resources permit (working with the city, county, and/or state)

ü       refrain from using supplemental irrigation once new plantings become established

ü       minimize, to the extent possible, the use of unsustainable capital inputs (e.g., pesticides, inorganic fertilizers, power equipment), thus reducing pollution and other environmental externalities

ü       develop a composting program for demonstration purposes and as a source of organic matter for fertilizer, to amend soils, and to reduce waste

ü       maximize the recycling of yard refuse for mulch and compost

ü       use organic fertilizers to the extent possible

ü       work to eliminate all toxic chemicals from landscape management practices

ü       tolerate pests to a degree and deal with pests through integrated plant and pest management to the extent needed

ü       reduce turf area and monocultures in favor of diverse native ground covers, dense tree canopies, understory trees, and shrubbery, and self mulching natural areas

ü       maximize the energy efficiency benefits of strategically placed vegetation, especially trees for shade and wind breaks

ü       enhance wildlife habitat by providing food, cover, & water (as opposed to the wildlife intoxicating industrial landscape)  and include wildlife enhancing artificial structures (e.g., bat houses and bird houses) to the extent possible

ü       include useful plants (e.g., pest deterrents, edibles, and medicinals for pedagogical purposes)

ü       include rare, threatened, and endemic plants to the extent appropriate

ü       establish and maintain demonstration plots through the curriculum working in cooperation with Facilities Management and other interests to include specialized gardens (e.g., butterfly gardens, sensory gardens, rain gardens, and prairie plantings)

ü       consider establishing a campus native nursery for landscape plants

 

Benefits

 

ü       improve ecological literacy and elevate the value placed on nature through education that celebrates natural heritage through interpretive information

ü       cultivate an ecologically based sense-of-place

ü       aesthetically pleasing (with a variety of flowering plants, colors, textures, fragrances, etc.) according to even conventional aesthetics, while

ü       helping to change the urban aesthetic by considering ecological principles and costs that are typically externalized by industrialized landscaping

ü       increase ecological complexity (as opposed to the ecologically simple industrial landscape) by increasing biological diversity at all levels (species, genetic, ecological)

ü       serve as a model landscape for other UW system campuses and the larger community

ü       serve as a catalyst for environmental action on campus as an early phase of campus sustainability efforts

ü       reduced maintenance costs

ü       cooperative ties with local plant nurseries and landscape professionals

 

Specific interpretive information that could be included about campus plants:

 

ü       nomenclature and taxonomy: common & Latin names, phylogeny

ü       origin/range/occurrence: common or rare/threatened/endangered? used in urban landscapes?

ü       life-form & biology: tree (canopy/understory), shrub, ground cover, vine, epiphyte, deciduous, evergreen, leaf (size, shape, color), flower (conspicuous/inconspicuous, season, color, fragrance), bark, fruit, growth, life expectancy, reproduction, germination, pollination, dispersal, ecology, etc.

ü       community (e.g., northern dry forest) & habitat requirements (water, soil, light, nutrients, fire, etc.)

ü       aesthetic value: color, foliage, fragrance, shape, bark texture, etc.

ü       hardiness: tolerance to salt, cold, shade, pests & disease, drought, fire, etc.

ü       wildlife value: does it provide food and/or cover and for what kinds of wildlife?

ü       human use value (past & present): food (edible landscape concept), medicinal, fuel, intruder deterrent, living fence, landscape use (shade, informal border, accent, framing, screen, ground cover, etc.) & substitutability (Which exotic can the native replace in the landscape? Are the exotics they replace naturalized and/or invasive?)

ü       notes/comments:

o        hazards (poisons, thorns, combustibility, resiliency of limbs & trunk to pests & wind, invasiveness, attractiveness to pests, sticky exudates, invasive or shallow roots, etc.)

o        good or bad for allergy sufferers (generally plants with inconspicuous flowers are worse)

o        hardiness in the urban environment

o        availability & cost