Chapman University sign

Planting ahead for water reduction The spotter's guide to drought tolerant plants at Chapman

A riddle: What’s green, greener and greenest?

plants in sunlight
Drought friendly plants liven up a walkway in the shady quad.

A hint: It’s not envy.

It’s the proliferation of drought tolerant plants taking over green spaces at Chapman University. However, with the one-two punch of attractive plants combined with reduced water use we can understand if you’re feeling a little bit envious.

Mackenzie Crigger, Chapman’s  Sustainability Manager, explains that landscape shift started a little more than a year ago, with test gardens at Fowler School of Law’s Kennedy Hall and nearby Memorial Hall. The change served two purposes: To reduce irrigated water consumption and find a unifying, as well as drought friendly, landscape to identify campus locations.

Plus, some high tech updates.

“We redid our irrigation and tied it to a weather based system,” Crigger says. So, if it’s raining, or projected to be raining – we’re not watering.

At the beginning of the project, the campus was landscaped with roughly 7 percent drought tolerant

Bright flowers
Zinnia’s add bright color and will hopefully get a second life on other parts of campus once their season is over.

plants – now, it’s more than 50 percent.  How much water is being saved? There’s been an 80 percent increase is water reduction in the last year, reducing by roughly 20 Olympic sized swimming pools worth.  The two big lawns on campus are a new low-water hybrid that are going to go “blonde” for late summer and winter. And the project isn’t done yet.

Beyond low maintenance, low water plants, there’s “hardscaping” with permeable gravel being put in across Chapman and the colorful flowerbeds on rotation on campus are being chosen for their re-plantability.

“When we change out those plants, we’re looking at if and where they can be planted elsewhere,” Crigger said.

Crigger gave us a tour of the new plant life and answered questions about what is blooming and where.

Around Chapman you can find:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brittany Hanson

Brittany Hanson

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