Sustainable Landscapes Trail Preview

1

Native Lawn

This native lawn demonstrates an alternative to traditional turf grass lawns. By using a diversity of native plants (grasses and forbs), this lawn uses no fertilizer, pesticides, requires minimal mowing and watering, and supports increased biodiversity.

2

Biodiversity in Natural Areas

The Mundy Wildflower Garden is part of 660 acres of natural lands on campus that Cornell Botanic Gardens manages for the long-term conservation of native biodiversity, natural communities, and ecological processes. Preserving biodiversity requires many approaches from removing invasive plant and pest species to adding native species and restoring habitat.

3

Deer Impact Research

Here at the Mundy Wildflower Garden, fencing ornamental and research plantings in high-value natural areas has been our way of implementing deer population management. This is essential to maintaining and restoring ecosystem health in our region’s natural areas and suburban landscapes.

4

Nevin Center Green Roof

The vegetated roof surface on the Nevin Welcome Center captures and treats precipitation falling on the building roof, acts as an insulating layer in the wintertime, and decrease the cooling demand during the summertime, demonstrating a solution to urban heat islands.

5

Botanic Gardens Bioswale

This filter strip and bioswale work together to remove pollution from parking lot runoff before entering Beebe Lake. This garden demonstrates the new paradigm of high-performance landscape that optimize both aesthetics and environmental performance.

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6

Climate Change Garden

This garden provides an opportunity to see and experience the possible impacts of changing temperature conditions associated with climate change on plants. While the project cannot simulate all aspects of climate change, the garden enables visitors to compare differences in plant response within the “Garden of Today” and the “Garden of 2050” based on changing temperature conditions. (Location: Pounder Garden across Arboretum Road from the Botanic Garden Welcome Center)

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7

Botanic Gardens IPM Program

The Integrated Pest Management approach, first created by scientists at Cornell in the mid-1970s to reduce pesticide use on agricultural crops, involves multiple non-chemical techniques for controlling pests and considers using pesticides only when all other approaches are not available or appropriate. Botanic Garden staff integrate a range of biological, organic, cultural, mechanical, and chemical options to prevent, monitor and manage pest problems.

8

Oaks in CU Soil at Stocking Hall

5 Chinkapin Oaks (Quercus muehlenbergii) fills up this space near Stocking Hall. Often times, soil underneath the pavement is compacted to the point where it excludes root growth. CU-Structural Soil was created at Cornell University to allow trees to grow in paved environments with required compaction yet still support healthy root growth. Chinkapin Oak, which is tolerant of drought and alkaline soils, is perfect for growing in this condition.

9

Rice Bowls Bioswale

Three bowl-shaped stormwater basins next to Rice Hall parking lot were redesigned and constructed to remove the turf and use a diversity of plants to create a diverse habitat and better use the storm water that flowed from the parking lot. These ‘Bioswales’ slow down stormwater, allow filtered water to recharge into the ground and prevent large amounts of polluted water from entering storm drains that flow into Cayuga Lake.

10

Fernow Green Roof and Rain Garden

In 2011, a rain garden and green roof were installed adjacent and on top of the new classroom that was built on the east side of Fernow. Rain gardens help to divert storm water from paved areas and roofs and channel it into the ground using a well-draining soil, which reduces the amount of polluted water flowing directly to streams and lakes. Likewise, an extensive green roof consists of a shallow layer of light-weight soil and plants that also trap precipitation and prevent it from going into storm drains.

11

Tower Road Bioswale

A bioswale is basically a trench filled with porous materials and vegetation to reduce runoff and increase groundwater recharge. The Tower Road bioswale captures runoff from the road and sidewalk and filters it through diverse plant beds. Five different plant groupings were planted to test their suitability to these difficult growing conditions.

12

Weill Hall Trees in Structural Soil

CU-Structural Soil was created at Cornell University to allow trees to grow in paved environments with required compaction yet still support healthy root growth. Goldenrain and Linden trees grow right out of the plaza pavement between Weill Hall and Biotech thanks to use of CU-Structural Soil as the planting soil under the plaza.

13

Mann Library Green Roof

Known as a “green roof,” the Mann Library Green Roof features modular trays filled with growing medium that can support selected plant life and easily be removed for roof maintenance or tray replacement. This garden was designed and constructed to convert a roof into a human-occupiable landscape that also provides ecosystem services. This was an effective way to add social space on campus where space is limited.

14

SITES Accredited

The garden at the entrance to Mann library tested cutting-edge guidelines and performance measures to pioneer certification under the Sustainable SITES Initiative® and showcase the Scoop & Dump method of soil restoration. The Sustainable SITES Initiative is a set of comprehensive, voluntary guidelines together with a rating system that assesses the sustainable design, construction, and maintenance of landscapes.

15

Bioretention Basins

This Ag Quad Bioretention Basin was established to redirect the increase in stormwater runoff to protect water quality and minimize downstream erosion and flooding in adjacent waterways. This system of bioretention basins incorporates designed soils with high infiltration that filter water and trap pollutants along with carefully selected plant materials that slow the runoff and take it up during transpiration. Shrub species were specifically chosen to plant in these basins for their tolerance to winter salt, and both wet and dry soil conditions.

16

Low Mow Turf

By utilizing grasses that are naturally slow growing such as fine-leaf fescues and allowing other areas to naturalize on their own, mowing of portions of Libe slope is limited to one time per year, significantly reducing the carbon footprint for this area. Need for watering and fertilizer are reduced, if not eliminated, in maintaining these areas.