Plants on Fairfax Campus Relocated

By Broadside Staff Reporter Christine Blake

Students, faculty and volunteers from many different organizations came together under the sun last Wednesday to dig up plants and re-plant them in a safer location on George Mason University’s Fairfax campus.

Two years ago, during the summer of 2006, many different types of native Virginian plants and flowers were planted in the soil at the corner of Rivanna River Way and Patriot Circle. Students who live in the Fairfax, Va. area may be familiar of this heavily traveled dirt path cutting through the corner where this vegetation once lived.

However, these plants are being threatened by the construction of a new pipe planned to travel through that exact area leading up to the new residential buildings. This is why many students from the Mason Environmental Awareness Group, students enrolled in New Century College and students from various classes came out together to save 19 plants.

Assistant Professor Andrew Wingfield, who teaches a class on sustainability, brought his students out from the NCC program to offer a helping hand to the event. This same type of event has been going on for several years now whenever new construction becomes detrimental to the plant life on campus.

Volunteer Nick Walker explained thoroughly how the volunteers went about moving the plants. On the corner of Patriot Circle and Rivanna River Way, helpers saw numbered plastic spoons. These spoons served as guides to differentiate the plants from each other and place them in the correct spots later.

The volunteers then dug the plants up carefully, placed them in wheelbarrows and transported them all the way up Sandy Creek Way directly across the street from the parking deck. There, a rain garden was carefully created to accommodate the plants.

There were corresponding spoons guiding the volunteers as to where certain plants needed to be positioned. The plants were placed in the specific locations based on whether or not they needed a lot of water.

“We created a sort of pinball machine with rocks in order to let the water travel down the hill,” Walker said. “This way plants that don’t like a lot of water can be at the top of the hill and the water can travel down the hill reaching the plants that require a lot of water.”

Volunteers were hard at work from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. moving plants such as strawberry bushes, blueberry bushes, flowering plants, azaleas and various other plant life to protected places where people can enjoy them.

Campus groundskeeper Archie Nesbitt also assisted the project by preparing the new garden area for the plants. He placed straw down on the grass to improve the condition of the soil so a garden could be created.

Volunteers appeared proud of their accomplishments, which allowed the relocation of the native plants, a better spot to flourish away from the dangers of construction. The native plant relocation was another event of Earth Week that proved how beneficial caring for the environment could be with some effort.