Before westerly enlargement , approximately 170 million acres of grass unfold across the cardinal United States , from the easterly edges of the Dakotas down to southeastern Texas , according to the National Park Service . Less than 4 % of that native prairie remain integral today , but much of what has survived resides in Kansas .
Joe Fearn , who joined the University of Kansas as landscape manager in recent 2021 , has leaned into hold the Lawrence campus scene unambiguously Kansan – a landscape that talk to the commonwealth ’s prairie roots .
This plan does n’t affect planting native metal money at random and allow them endure uncivilised ; KU is still a learning and enquiry institution , after all . Fearn ’s personal doctrine for landscaping reconciles reform-minded and sustainable landscape gardening with a realistic and working ground management feeler . His outlook encompasses not just what involve to be done in the next few class , but in the tenner to fare , sculpting an environment that balances self - sustainability and intentional training .
Fearn said his method focuses on work with the landscape to enhance its innate charm to well cope with the indigence of the community instead of constantly endeavor to struggle and manipulate it .
" You ca n’t have a prairie on Jayhawk Boulevard , " he tell , " but you may evoke that . you’re able to have vestiges of prairie . you could have something with proper landscape design principle . you’re able to utilize those to convey an idea . "
Fearn antecedently served as head groundskeeper at Springfield Greene County Parks and Drury University , both in Missouri , and more recently as the plantsman supervisory program at Mississippi State University . He ’s worked in every aspect of the industry from golf game courses and sportswoman turf to irrigation , but Fearn said what he truly enjoys is being able-bodied to comprehensively work on a web site for the tenacious term .
" I desire to see the entire campus wangle in a way that reflects our panorama , " Fearn read . " Some places are going to look more fantastic , and some places are travel to look more ceremonious and traditional . All that is fine , but we do n’t require plant life out of stead . We do n’t want bushed plants . We want the whole university landscape painting to reflect our intention . "
With the reveal of KU ’s proposed 2024 campus master plan , which limn the goals for campus buildings , facility and substructure for the next 10 twelvemonth , the grounds bunch will have unclouded guidelines to shape its purpose . The schoolmaster plan is presently being finalized and will ultimately ask to be approve by the Kansas Board of Regents .
A novel greenway in the propose campus master programme would link up west , cardinal and north territory and enhance the campus ' biodiversity . The plan also includes reducing the amount of turfgrass on campus , saving stewardship , incorporating a nature preserve with a lead and adding native and adapted industrial plant , as well as subtlety trees site in transmission line and bunch , to the ecosystem .
" Campus is largely a people mover now , where people are walking through to get from point A to point B , " Fearn said . " Rather than just providing little destinations along the direction where hoi polloi can stop and revel the landscape , we ’re trying to make an surround throughout campus that people can enjoy and use for studying , socializing and relax without feeling like it ’s just induce them from building to building . "
Fearn is not alone in carry out this imaginativeness . Along with long - term planners like Mark Reiske , university architect , and Allison Gerth , landscape designer project manager , about 25 grounds staff are go along busy class - one shot with a number of responsibilities for maintaining and executing raw projects on the 1,200 - Accho Lawrence campus .
They mop , restitute full beds , plant verdure , murder leaves , find fault up trash , prune industrial plant and trees , plow ice and snow , and more , even make Strong Hall ’s 7 - understructure tall hand-crafted wreath with materials foraged from campus .
" If you see something outside , we do it , " read Willie Justus , landscape painting worker .
A job for allseasonsCrouched in a freshly turned bottom at the Chi Omega Fountain on a balmy November day , Katherine Stringer , elderly landscape worker , shoved tulip bulbs in the pocket of her boilersuit . Then , trowel in paw , she deftly created lowly hollow at the border of the fountain and plopped in the bulbs one by one . Over the next match of weeks , Stringer and the gardening squad embed about 27,000 bulbs across campus . With the approach of spring , these plants have bloomed in a shining raiment of red , sensationalistic and lily-white tulips .
" I would say a big hook to the line of work for me is the immediate gratification of the body of work you do , " she said . " It ’s very overnice to start a task and transform these areas and see the fruits of your labor . You get to create a mass of dish as well . "
A typical day set about at 6:30 a.m. before the balance of campus becomes dynamic . Workers are separate into squad , led by Liam Reynolds , horticulture supervisor , and Mike Jones , maintenance supervisory program , and assigned to routes , which determine which task and projects they work on throughout the hebdomad .
In the warm season , the day are dedicated to mowing , gardening , managing trees , crystalise weeds and anything else touch to the outdoor landscape painting . During the wintertime , the team , as well as additional stave from facilities , custodial and transportation services , are also strapped with the Herculean task of preparing campus ahead of storm as well as removing snow and crank from roads and sidewalks .
A diverse squad dispute the status quoEven after hour of physical labour , some landscape painting staff also enjoy horticulture and outdoor activities in their own clip . Emily Foltz , senior landscape painting worker , said she often tends to her houseplants and goes hike up , and Scott Cramer , landscape worker , forages food from his lifelike backyard garden .
Many crew fellow member do n’t come from landscaping backgrounds , however . The chore has brought together a group with a wide-eyed range of experiences , from assist on anthropologic digs in Central America to do as a one - humanity cover band at local gigs . With a doctor’s degree in oboe performance from KU , Foltz has even recorded a CD with the KU Wind Ensemble and Kansas Virtuosi honor the late Ecuadorian composer Luis Humberto Salgado .
Justus said everyone ’s diverse backgrounds work to the team ’s advantage as their dissimilar idea create an interesting mix of industry standard and unconventional approaches to landscaping .
" I would say we ’ve been doing alone new approaches to everything , even since I came on two old age ago , " Justus said . " With Joe and Liam , we ’ve really been challenging the position quo . One thing that ’s really fun is that if you get on Google Maps and check out old views on some of the plantings versus what we do now , it ’s an entirely different ball game . "
Cramer liken the approach path to an modern chef . While using more aboriginal plant in the landscape is all well and sound , he said their job is also about making those plantings depend intriguing and eye - catching .
" score that all argumentation up is where it ’s at , " Cramer tell . " If you ’re a chef or a cook and you ’re really into it , you do n’t want to make the same old essence and potatoes . You want to practice cutting - border stuff and flavor , so I think that ’s what we ’re kind of into . And we really are into it . "
Fearn and the crowd pointed out the space between Chalmers , Marvin and Lindley halls as an surface area they ’re particularly proud of and would wish to emulate elsewhere . The garden is filled with a balance of groomed and native increment , and a seats domain invites educatee to break and take a break between classes .
" Two years ago , this would ’ve just been pear trees and mulch , " Fearn said . " Now you see a rotary motion of plant life , you see a heap of texture , bm , some evergreen , grasses , etc . We ’re leaning heavily into aboriginal in this region . The efflorescence bottom here are close to what we ’re trying to do in a lot of different areas on campus . It does n’t need any water or much mulch , and you’re able to see the pollinators on it . All we need to do is cut down it in the spring , and that ’s it . "
Native gardening can be a slow wages , as it can take about three years for them to amply take and become established , Foltz said . But later , the planting will look much fuller , and the care needed will be less clock time - consuming .
" ' They ' sleep , creep and jump ' is the Missouri Conservationist ’s little catchy saying , " she said . " The first twelvemonth it ’s probably not going to bet like much if you put in pretty small plants . The next yr they ’re give way to look moderately just , like outside Chalmers and the engineering edifice , but just waitress until next year when it ’s settle down in — when they jump . "
As one of their larger projects , Fearn said the team and official are look at taking out closely 50 acre of turfgrass across campus and eventually grapple those area as prairie . They to boot desire to step in in iconic spots on campus to summate more visual interest , such as in front of Strong Hall . The bunch has also been work on add together plants and evolution to areas that have antecedently been au naturel or overlooked , such as by lamppost or along stairways .
Nurturing campus connectionsAt the conclusion of the twenty-four hours , Fearn said the grounds crew ’s oeuvre is in the interest of helping mass join with the physical environs on campus .
" Whether it ’s scholarly person , faculty , faculty , alumni , visitors or the Lawrence residential district , I ’ve always said the priming coat at a university touch the entire biotic community in a fashion that no other entity does . Everybody interact with the landscape , " Fearn tell .
One way the team tries to connect to the campus community at large is the ground crowd social media , @kugrounds on Instagram and X , formerly know as Twitter . There , Fearn foreground the team ’s study , as well as its connections to pupil and campus innovation and progress . Whether it ’s the up-to-the-minute planting project or fundamental interaction with people walking their dogs on campus , the photograph and posts help build a stronger sensory faculty of community of interests .
" We have a very passionate team , and we put our back , our minds and our hearts into our job , " Fearn enounce . " Social media was a way to convey that because we ’re largely on campus all day , every 24-hour interval , and we desire to show everyone why we be intimate this campus . "
The crew also collaborate with students on campus project at times . Sarah Reuben - Hallock , sophomore in environmental study , is a penis of multiple sustainability - focused organizations such as Sunrise KU , the KU Botany Club ’s aboriginal plant commission and the Center for Community Outreach ’s Earth program , whose joint projects have include the creation of a monarch means place and " snag " site , an area of stagnant trees that service as habitats for wildlife .
With support from the grounds gang , Reuben - Hallock said she hop-skip to leverage its influence as a student to support the campus imagination of invoking the tall-grass prairie and advocate for solutions and resources to protect the campus environment for future generations .
" KU boasts an undeniably picturesque landscape characterized by rolling hills and a vivacious array of trees that never fail to captivate me during my walks across campus , " Reuben - Hallock tell . " Because of the importance of reflect the ecological sum of our region , the footing work party ’s study is polar not only for the present but also for the future sustainability of our campus . I wholeheartedly support and value their donation and appreciate their willingness to involve students in shape our campus ’s aesthetic and ecological identity element . "
Fearn and his squad ’s piece of work to boot patronage the institutional precedence of Healthy & Vibrant Communities in KU ’s Jayhawk Rising strategical plan . The grounds gang also spiel a key role in student and employee enlisting .
" The ravisher of our campus is important to creating a goodly , vibrant place for our the great unwashed to puzzle out , study and go , " said Barbara Bichelmeyer , provost and executive vice chancellor . " The landscaping team is on the front credit line of our recruiting sweat by creating a beautiful and welcoming campus environment for prospective students and employees . "
A small but mighty teamAs Fearn and his team continue to swivel toward a strategy of more native and sustainable landscaping , they are keenly aware of their immense province to the campus community . It can be challenging at time balancing the request of all the various stakeholders on campus with practicality and sustainability in mind , as well as managing the anticipation of what the 25 - person team can physically do ; but ultimately , the work will get done .
" I narrate my squad , ' Failure is not an option , and we ’re going to have to do it , ' " Fearn said . " But the great thing about this team is we are fired up . This is a highly motivated crew , and they ’re doing it out of a sense of superbia , squad cohesion and professionalism , and I love that . When I got here , I had some idea , and they had some ideas , and we put those together , so it ’s a squad effort . Take away any of these people , and we ’re not the same . "
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