Creating a Unified Landscape for the Widener Visitor's Center
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Internship Program Reports Education and Visitor Experience 5-2009 Creating a Unified Landscape for the Widener Visitor’s Center M. E. Speller Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/morrisarboretum_internreports Recommended Citation Speller, M. E., "Creating a Unified Landscape for the Widener Visitor’s Center" (2009). Internship Program Reports. 97. https://repository.upenn.edu/morrisarboretum_internreports/97 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/morrisarboretum_internreports/97 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Creating a Unified Landscape for the Widener Visitor’s Center This report is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/morrisarboretum_internreports/97 Title: Creating a Unified Landscape for the Widener Visitor’s Center Author: M.E. Speller Horticulture Intern Date: March 22, 2009 Abstract: The Widener Visitor’s Center is our primary point of contact with the public, however the landscape in front of the building fails to highlight its importance. Although this building supports many crucial functions of the Arboretum, in part because it is a re-purposed carriage house, the landscape around it easily becomes confusing and disjointed. Creating a cohesive design for the front of the Visitor Center will help visitors navigate both the building and the arboretum itself with greater ease. In addition, this landscape can be an example of good horticulture at its simplest, serving as a model for home landscaping. The new plan for Widener is designed to orient the visitor toward the front entrance where Visitor Services can best help him or her. The plants used were chosen primarily for soil adaptability and compact size, as well as year-round interest. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Creating a Unified Landscape for the Widener Visitor’s Center .................................................... 3 Site Evaluation ............................................................................................................................... 3 Area of Focus .................................................................................................................................. 5 Site Analysis ................................................................................................................................... 6 Solution ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Plant Selection ................................................................................................................................ 9 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 14 References ..................................................................................................................................... 15 Appendix Figure 1: Inventory Area. ......................................................................................................... 16 Figure 2: Soil test locations and pH levels. .................................................................................. 17 Figure 3: New bed shapes ............................................................................................................. 18 Figure 4: List of new plants and basic attributes .......................................................................... 19 2 CREATING A UNIFIED LANDSCAPE FOR THE WIDENER VISITOR’S CENTER The Widener Visitor’s Center is the single most important building at the Morris Arboretum today. It supports our many public programs, providing spaces for classes and events. It is the location of our Plant Clinic and our Gift Shop. It is extremely important in terms of orienting first-time visitors to the Arboretum. However, the landscaping in front of this building has been largely overlooked. While currently there is a fair amount of seasonal interest from bulb displays in spring and annual displays throughout the summer, during the majority of the year the landscape around this building is extremely barren as it is overly reliant on annuals and herbaceous perennials. The purpose of this project is to create a plan for a planting scheme which will highlight the importance of the Visitor Center all year long. In addition, the plan intends to make changes to the softscaping in order to address the somewhat confusing hardscaping of Widener, which can sometimes make it difficult for visitors to access this important resource. SITE EVALUATION The first stage of my project was the evaluation phase. This phase consisted of an inventory of the plants currently located around Widener, soil tests, and research and interviews concerning the history and possible future of the landscape. The area inventoried was much larger than the area that eventually became the focus of the project. This area extended all the way to the Bell as indicated in Figure 1. The purpose of this inventory was firstly to build upon earlier research by former intern Kem-Ok Kim who found in a 2004-2005 project that many plants had died because of the difficult growing conditions at the site, namely thin, dry soil and high pH. Kim's study focused on the plants in what is known as the Woodland Garden, located to the south of Widener. Kim only looked at herbaceous plants but I also inventoried woody 3 plants.1 During my inventory, no plants were found to be dead but a few showed signs of decline such as the pale witchhazel (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’) and many of the philadelphus (Philadelphus schrenki). In general, aside from slight chlorosis none of the plants demonstrated decline caused solely by high pH levels. In addition, the inventory noted that many plants, such as the Viburnum nudum ‘LW’ and the Cornus kousa, were in danger of outgrowing their space and blocking the windows to the building. Most of these plants will be moved elsewhere in the general vicinity of the building. Concurrently with the inventory process, soil tests were performed through the Penn State Cooperative Extension program. Soil samples were taken from six of the beds surrounding Widener. The results of these tests can be seen in Figure 2. All of the samples were in the neutral-to-slightly-alkaline range of 7.0 to 7.6 pH. According to Penn State the optimal pH level to support the widest variety of plants is 6.5. The difference between a pH of 6.5 and 7.5 may not seem like a very big one, however pH is a logarithmic scale, meaning that the difference of one unit on the scale is actually a multiple of ten. Therefore 7.5 is actually ten times more alkaline than 6.5. The pH was highest in the beds directly in front of Widener. Many of the Arboretum staff I talked to about the high pH suggest this is related to the repairs made to the roof and brickwork of the building. In 2005 Kem-Ok Kim also found that the pH was high in the Woodland Garden to the side of the Widener building. Kim only tested in the beds to the left side of Widener in the Woodland area and found that pH levels were all above 7.3. For the two beds which Kim and I both tested, the pH levels remained the same since 2005.2 However, these beds 1. Kim, Kem-ok. "Re-Evaluation and Improvement of the Woodland Garden Around the Widener Education Building." Final Independent Project Reports. 2004-2005: 57-67. 2. Kim, Kem-ok. "Re-Evaluation and Improvement of the Woodland Garden Around the Widener 4 were further from the building and most likely not effected by construction. Whatever its cause, the high pH was a significant limiting factor on the plant palette we could use for the design project. In addition to testing the pH and performing an inventory on the plants I also interviewed various members of the Arboretum staff concerning the design, including Curator Tony Aiello, Chief Horticulturalist Vince Marrocco, Director of Public Programs Bob Gutowski, and Visitor Services Coordinator Adele Waering. I also talked to Liza Hawley (Youth Education Coordinator) and Ellen Wilkinson of the Great Plants Committee because I hoped the area around Widener could be used in a Great Plants tour. During the interviewing process many long-term issues were brought up, in particular the need for a larger patio in front of the Gift Shop with more seating, as well as the need to develop a policy concerning this patio and the many functions it supports. In general people expressed a desire for plants with more interest during the whole year, in keeping with our position as a four-season garden. Perhaps the highest concern of those interviewed was planting the area around Widener in such a way as to direct visitors towards the front door. AREA OF FOCUS After obtaining the soil test results, consulting with several staff members about the space and performing an inventory on the plants around Widener, Vince Marrocco and I decided to prioritize an area of concentration for the first phase of the design project. We chose to focus on the front and north side of the building. This decision was made for several reasons. Firstly, these beds have large unplanted areas and the plants in these beds have very little in common with one Education Building." Final Independent Project Reports. 2004-2005: 57-67. 5 another. Secondly, changing these beds would have the greatest impact in terms of orienting the visitor toward Widener from the parking lot as well as from the entry road. In addition, Vince Marrocco