The WSU Native Plant & Landscape Restoration Nursery is beginning its first year of operation. Student work crews are planting the foundation stock of native plant materials and constructing an additional shade house and outdoor propagation plots next to our existing campus greenhouse facilities at the E.H. Steffen Teaching & Research Center on the edge of the Pullman campus at Washington State University.
The nursery is currently working on building capacity to engage in five project areas:
The WSU Arboretum Committee has begun developing a new arboretum site adjacent to the Lewis Alumni Center. The nursery will help support the growth and development of the WSU Arboretum & Botanical Garden and assist in the development of botanical gardens, restoration sites, and native plant exhibits for public education and recreation.
Washington State
University has joined the national Campus Ecology Program of the National
Wildlife Federation. The WSU Campus & Community Ecology Project supports
work on campus greening, energy use, facilities development, recycling,
and sustainability issues.
WSU has proposed to expand its current golf course. The nursery faculty and staff will assist with landscape design and use of native plants and xeriscaping on what is proposed to be a modern, low-water golf course appropriate for a western landscape.
WSU faculty and students are working with public and private landowners on individual projects to restore Palouse Prairie plant communities, generally on farm land being converted back to native prairie.
A major goal of the nursery is to develop the ecological technology
to restore wet meadow communities, and especially, the beautiful blue
camas fields of former Palouse Prairie. The Camas Garden is a botanical
garden site currently being developed and dedicated to displaying
camas and other selected native flowering plants.
