New garden full of Texas foliage

The Rio Grande Campus got a little more green as students planted a demo garden near the corner of Rio Grande and 12th street by the front entrance to the main building. The Students for Environmental Outreach planted the garden as the first step toward making Rio Grande Campus a certified wildlife habitat.

According to Amy Cunningham, the faculty advisor for Students for Environmental Outreach, the students in the organization plan on meeting with a habitat steward from the National Wildlife Foundation sometime in January to have the garden evaluated and find out what else needs to be included in order to certify the campus.

In order to have a certified native wildlife habitat, the project must meet certain criteria while providing for the wildlife. These include protection for the garden, a water source in the form of a bird bath, that the art department has volunteered to create, and not using any chemicals. Fertilizer may be used in the form of natural compost such as vegetables, eggshells and coffee grounds according to Cunningham.

"It means that we are modeling how to live in harmony with nature. How to share human spaces to meet human needs and wildlife needs at the same time," said Cunningham.

The garden was planted on Nov. 24 and will include 84 different native plants to Texas. The college provided the soil, mulch, and rocks for the garden. The group was in charge of raising the money to buy the plants.

They received thirty dollars in the form of donations, while the rest of the money came from a gift certificate won during this year's annual Project Build-A-Park sponsored by the Office of Student Life and The Austin Parks Foundation.

"We bought everything that is native to this area and tried to find the flowers that would benefit the most wildlife in the area," said Cunningham who bought most of the plants from Native Texas Nursery, located in far east Austin.

The long-term goal of these gardening projects is to eventually make the campus a certified wildlife habitat. To do that there has to be a few more additional garden areas with plants native to Texas.

George Griffith, the Supervisor for Grounds and Building Maintenance for the ACC district, helped the group construct the garden bed. Griffith made trips to the Texas Disposal Systems landfill in order to collect mulch. He also delivered rock and soil, created an irrigation system and showed the group gardening techniques including the correct types of stone positioning.

"Hopefully it will make a positive impact on students and get a few more folks interested in native plants. They can admire the garden and the beauty of it. I hope it brings as much joy to others as it brings to me to see the beauty of it and the hard work that went into planting it," said Griffith.

Kallysta Castillo, the officer of treasury for Students for Environmental Outreach plans on bringing a blanket to school and studying by the garden once it warms up in the spring.

"I'm really excited to see the positive effects that its supposed to create on the biodiversity by encouraging the native species to come around," said Castillo. "I'm looking forward to seeing the butterflies and the birds, that's my favorite part."