Native garden unveiled
Trillium Plant Garden celebrated during Earth Week
April 7, 2007
Angela Wiebe
Dozens of students, faculty, staff, and members of the Langley community gathered in the parking lot behind Neufeld Science Centre on March 21, to celebrate the grand opening of Trinity Western University’s first native plant garden.
The event, held in conjunction with the Trinity Environmental Advocates’ (TEA) Earth Week festivities, was intended to officially introduce the Trillium Native Plant Garden to the campus community. The little patch of earth, formerly covered by brambles of blackberry bushes, is now home to 65 different plant species, making it one of the largest native gardens in the Fraser Valley.
“It’s really exciting because people forget how important native plants are to an ecosystem,” said TEA president Deanna Leigh. “I hope people become more aware of it and check it out.”
The idea for the Trillium garden first came six years ago when work crews mistakenly uprooted the area’s blackberry bushes. A fresh slate to work with, Ecosystem Study Area Manager Christopher Hall decided to “return the space to something more natural.”
With funds from the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences (NATS), donations of topsoil from the Collegium Project (then under construction), and student volunteers, the garden slowly came to life. Although it’s already been half a dozen years of tending to the garden, Hall said, “I still really think of it as a beginning.”
Anthea Farr, education officer for the Langley Field Naturalists, was on campus to support the event.
“We’re losing so much with development, it’s important to have gardens like this,” she said.
NATS Chair, Dr. Jack Van Dyke noted the garden confirms the university’s commitment to creation.
“How many universities have a salmon-bearing stream running right through its campus?” he asked. “Our call as Christians is very much to care about creation.”
Hall noted the ceremony was purposely scheduled to coincide with Earth Week. Along with the garden ceremony, the week’s worth of activities included everything from an owl pellet dissection, to a nature walk, to a viewing of An Inconvenient Truth, as well as many discussions and lectures.
“It went really well,” Leigh said of the week. “We wanted to focus this year on climate change because it’s a huge issue. We felt it was a good opportunity to get students more interested.”
Leigh noted she was continually shocked with how many people showed up to events, including a climate change seminar hosted by Simon Fraser University professor and Canadian Research Chair Karen Kohfeld. Though they expected only a dozen or so attendants, Leigh said the room was packed with an audience of about 60.
“There’s an obvious interest on campus,” she said. “It’s so important for Christians to realize how important our lives are to the earth.”
She noted that each student can make a difference by turning off lights in unused rooms, taking public transit instead of driving, and lowering the temperature in dorms and off-campus residences.
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