Welcome to Evergreen's Teaching Gardens....
The Evergreen State College has built its reputation on being an institution of innovation. In 1995, we began to innovate by creating outdoor learning environments - "Teaching Gardens" - that would serve our students and build bridges to the broader South Puget Sound community. Yet our landscape remained largely out-of-step with current trends toward drought tolerant plantings instead of water, pesticide, and labor-intensive lawns. Currently we are in the process of significantly expanding our creation and use of Teaching Gardens. The current plan radically reduces the amount of lawns and invasive English-ivy. Most of the gardens are designed and installed by students as part of their academic experience. The goals driving the design, creation, maintenance and use of these gardens are to:
- Improve the educational value of plantings
- Enhance cultural exchange
- Expand environmental learning resources and opportunities
As well as:
- Promote environmentally sustainable garden design
- Create low maintenance designs
- Improve wildlife habitat
- Integrate existing mature trees and shrubs into proposed designs
- Work within existing irrigated beds
- Reduce water and energy usage
- Remove as much lawn as possible while meeting needs for inviting places to sit
- Improve aesthetics in the core of the campus
- Create opportunities for students to link theory with praxis and
- Integrate the Teaching Gardens with the forest trail system.
In Spring of 2003 we installed a waterwise pollinator garden with support of the City of Olympia's water conservation program. With the construction of the new Seminar II building we installed two new teaching gardens: roof gardens and a post-glacial forest. By modifying the plantings around the lab buildings we are creating a Laurasian Landscape that educates visitors about the influence of continental drift and evolution of the world flora. In the Spring of 2004, we will install a medicinal herb garden at the Organic Farm. Over the next ten years with capital funds and donations, the campus hopes to install additional teaching gardens including a basket and deer knot gardens.
