Northern Michigan University’s Campus Nursery brought back to life for university’s 125th anniversary

Northern Michigan University has opened a Campus Nursery on the same parcel of land that many decades ago also held a nursery before it fell into disuse due to neglect. The revitalized Campus Nursery is a space for native plants, pollinators, and insects, and the hope is that the area will help increase biodiversity and improve water retention, as well as grow the trees and plants that will be used in future campus landscaping projects. Additionally, the space will provide many hands-on opportunities for students.

According to an article on Northern Michigan University’s website, Jes Thompson, who serves as the university’s assistant vice president of Sustainability, explained how the new Campus Nursery came about and what benefits the campus will see because of its existence. Thompson is quoted as saying, “Every year, we get Green Fund proposals for more native plants on campus. Now we'll be able to grow our own plants and trees and have them healthy, resilient and ready to go into the ground after a construction or renovation project is completed. It's the best of all worlds from a sustainability perspective. Facilities and Grounds have gone above and beyond to make the space available. And then we've got a student who's our inaugural native plant intern who has done a lot of research on what species work here.”

The Campus Nursery, of which the upkeep is a collaborative effort between the university’s Grounds department, Facilities department, and SHINE (Sustainability Hub for Innovation & Environment), was borne from Green Fund proposals made by students that focus on sustainability. Among the many benefits it will have for Northern Michigan University is that it will allow for the growing of plants and trees to be used in landscaping efforts right on campus, eliminating the expensive and environmentally taxing methods used in the past, including driving to pick up plants from several states away and then bring them back to campus.

Brock Tessman, the president of Northern Michigan University, shared his enthusiasm for the project, saying, “This is so exciting to see, and I also learned some things about landscaping. This fits well with our efforts on campus with respect to sustainability more generally, and it's a really nice example of how to complement our carbon neutrality plan. I think sustainability is not just defined by how we get our energy, for example, but also how we operate on this campus day in and day out. This seems like a concrete example of how to make progress, even down to the fact that we won't have those trucks shipping the trees up here. We can grow them right on campus instead, which is tremendous.”

Grace Freed is serving as the native plant intern at the Campus Nursery. She is a junior student majoring in Environmental Studies and Sustainability. She has previous experience working in native plant nurseries, and within the Campus Nursery, she will be taking care of the plants until they are ready to be transported and planted elsewhere on campus. Freed started working at the Campus Nursery right away. She explained how she and Dave Raudio, a landscaping specialist with Plant Operations, prepared the site for the new nursery, saying, “We built the deer fence around the parcels first. That process lasted a couple of weeks. And then we did some tilling of the soil and some serious weeding. It's cool to have these opportunities to get more hands-on and involved in the growing process, and to see native trees and plants in the conditions they are meant to thrive in. I'm very excited that Northern decided to start this new nursery.”

For more information about Northern Michigan University, visit the school’s website.