New plantings around the Grove of State Trees restrooms......great project, mediocre photography!

At the Arboretum, our interns spend a part of their time working on selected projects; near the end of their terms they do Powerpoint presentations for USNA staff et alia.  We listened to the bulk of their presentations yesterday at lunch. Good projects and good presentations.

For the first time that I remember there was a group project; four interns worked together to redo the plantings around the restrooms in the Grove of State Trees. They were wildly successful.  It was a fairly energetic project that included large scale removals, design, acquiring plants, site preparation, planting, and even the installation of a drip irrigation system.  Everyone familiar with the old planting cheered the removal of  the overgrown Leyland Cypresses and the English Ivy. The group chose to use North American Natives. That's a broad category, but it reflects the composition of the Grove itself, and allowed for the inclusion of many of the plants Joan, Amy, and I collected in Alabama. This means there's important and interesting germplasm in an attractive ornamental planting. That always makes Richard Olsen (our tree breeder) happy.