$5.4 million grant allows for project's completion
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| This artist's rendering shows what the Arboretum Waterway project will look like when completed. (Courtesy UC Davis Arboretum) |
A long-awaited transformation at UC Davis is a step closer to reality – the completion of the Arboretum Waterway habitat project.
The university has received a $5.4 million grant from the California Natural Resources Agency to finish the “Arboretum Waterway Flood Protection and Habitat Enhancement” project. The public is invited to a virtual community meeting via Zoom to discuss the project at 7 p.m Thursday, Feb. 24. Advance registration for the meeting is required; sign up here: https://bit.ly/3uBcST1
Phase 1 of the project was completed in 2018. That phase engineered water flow and replanted native vegetation near the arboretum’s Wyatt Deck, through the Redwood Grove to the eastern end of the Arboretum Waterway.
Four years later, the arboretum can now tackle the remaining three phases of the waterway’s makeover, starting at Lake Spafford (near Mrak Hall) and extending west to the campus equestrian center. Besides the new grant, the university will contribute $2.5 million in deferred maintenance funds to the waterway project.
“We are ecstatic about this project,” said Kathleen Socolofsky, assistant vice chancellor and director of the Arboretum and Public Garden, in an official release. “It has all come together thanks to many thoughtful years of planning and collaboration with faculty and other campus partners. The proof of concept for our overall plan is flourishing and now we can finish the transformation.”
Also known as Putah Creek (although it doesn’t actually connect to that creek), the Arboretum Waterway forms the backbone of the arboretum as well as serves as part of the campus flood control system.
Expected to be completed in 2024, the remaining phases will remove concrete walls that now line the waterway and replace them with gently sloped earthen banks studded with trees, shrubs and native plants. As a home to birds and other wildlife, the waterway will be reshaped with islands in the stream, narrows to speed water flow and pockets of marshlike wetlands.
In addition to helping wildlife, the project will also greatly benefit students – especially those studying wetland habitat restoration – by providing hands-on job training. Working with the arboretum in the restoration project will be the California Conservation Corps and the Center for Land-Based Learning’s SLEWS (Student and Landowner Education and Watershed Stewardship) program.
Learn more at https://arboretum.ucdavis.edu .
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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