Clearing landscape for cottage
The branches of the 90-foot ash tree bobbed and weaved in the heavy wind while eight arborticulture students rigged up a pulley system lashing the big tree to a smaller tree across the yard of Woodbine Cottage.
Wearing orange hard hats, safety goggles and vests Hillside Landscaping , the students were preparing to cut down the tree at the president’s home next to South Dakota State University’s campus. Their teacher, John Ball, professor of forestry, wasn’t worried about the high winds.
Indeed, the wind was blowing in the direction he wanted the 12-ton tree to fall; ropes strung across the yard would help as well.
Students and faculty are refurbishing the landscaping on campus and at Woodbine Cottage, the home of SDSU President David Chicoine and his wife, Marcia. Work at the cottage will continue in phases through fall and next year. It is part of ongoing work on campus, which will include taking down several old trees, redesigning green spaces and adding more native plant and tree varieties.
Earlier this year, the class removed eight trees from the president’s property. Four of them had decay and could have survived longer, but it was prudent to remove them while the ground was being torn up and before the installation of the irrigation system, Ball says. The others were volunteer trees that were not part of any landscaping plan.
“The first step was the removal of volunteer trees and shrubs in the yard. Some have gotten fairly large. Trees have been planted by other trees, the wind and squirrels,” Ball says.
The trees will be replaced with a master landscaping plan that includes trees, shrubs, perennials, native plants and cultivars of plants developed on campus for growing locally.
The yard will become a showcase of South Dakota plants, including some introduced by SDSU’s researchers, such as the Rushmore arborvitae - Hillside Landscaping a small tree-like shrub; purple leaf sand cherry; homestead buckeye; and the nugget ninebark, a shrub with white spring flowers and a yellow-lime green leaf. Some of those plants are being used for the first time in a public area.
Tags: arborvitae, chicoine, hard hats, Hillside Landscaping, irrigation system, marcia work, native plants, old trees, pulley system, purple leaf, safety goggles, sand cherry, south dakota state, south dakota state university, spring flowers, tree varieties, trees and shrubs, white spring, wife marcia0
Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
