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Visit us Tuesday through Sunday
8:00am to 5:00pm
Rutgers Gardens is closed every Monday.
We'll also be closed on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 28th!
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Greetings, Friends of Rutgers Gardens.
Happy November!
During this season of thankfulness, we are grateful for the ways Rutgers Gardens is expanding. We’ve shared a few examples of this growth throughout the year, such as the Campus Stewardship initiative. Our Vision Plan will further outline a strong path forward. The plan is still in development as our team takes the time needed to best evolve the Gardens not only as a cherished public space for our community but also as a vegetable farm and a living laboratory for university collaborations.
It’s been a busy year so far, and while winter can be a quieter time for many gardens, our team is still hard at work. This month, we’re planting the last of the 100 new native trees allotted through the Trees for Schools grant, with understory plantings of shrubs and herbaceous perennials up next. Now we just need the rain! Embracing community collaborations throughout the season, we partnered with prospective Eagle Scouts to make improvements to Helyar Woods and the Pollinator Garden. We installed new fencing in the Rain Garden and at the Rutgers Gardens Student Farm. Volunteer teams and our staff and students have made noticeable headway in clearing overgrowth and invasives from several areas including the lilac collection, winterberry holly collection, and in the Shrub Garden. Families enjoyed another successful season of the 4-H Camp at Rutgers Gardens and a festive weekend at the Spring Plant Sale. We appreciate everyone who continues to support small businesses and local farms at Cook’s Market, including our Student Farm. The Summer Internship Program brought together an amazing and hardworking cohort of Rutgers students, many of whom continued on as student staff on our horticulture and farm teams this fall. Remember that there is still much to see at Rutgers Gardens in the colder months; we’ll have more updates and projects to share with you in December and the new year.
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On behalf of the Rutgers Gardens team, I would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all of YOU, our community of friends and stakeholders, for your support and engagement throughout this year. We are thankful for our volunteers, members, and donors. We value the alumni who bring loved ones here to share their memories of a campus treasure, as well as university faculty who bring their classes to experience our unique plant specimens and ecological features. We hope you enjoy a healthy and happy holiday season, and welcome you to visit and take a moment for yourself away from the stress this time of year can sometimes bring, to recalibrate among the beautiful plants of Rutgers Gardens.
Until then, read on for more exciting developments throughout this newsletter…
See you in the Gardens!
Lauren Errickson
Director of Rutgers Gardens and Campus Stewardship
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(F)all good things must come to an end... | | |
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Each month, Rutgers Gardens hosts an "All-Staff Workday," where everyone comes together to tackle a project that helps beautify a garden area or give some TLC to the vegetable beds on the Rutgers Gardens Student Farm. It's a great opportunity for colleagues to share with what they do on a day-to-day basis and to experience the different sides to each role at Rutgers Gardens, in addition to swapping stories and making each other laugh while working. | |
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These team-building events are often paired with volunteer outings so that staff and volunteers can spend more time getting to know each other, and because many hands make lighter work! In previous months, the whole team has harvested garlic and carrots together on the Student Farm, planted annuals in the Donald B. Lacey Display Garden, removed invasive vines from our holly trees, pulled weeds in the lilac collection, and much more.
Things came full circle in the DBL on October 29th as gardens, office, and farm staff joined forces with some dedicated volunteers to dig up the annual plants that reached the end of their season in the sun. The team took special care to leave the cold-hardy irises in the ground and are ready to move cannas and dahlias to the greenhouse to overwinter.
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It's bittersweet to close out the colorful spring and summer annual displays, and to wish the monarch butterflies safe passage on the next leg of their migratory journey. But the DBL will bloom again!
Special thanks to the volunteers who came out on October 29th, and to all the 2024 Budding Beds donors who honored loves ones and supported Rutgers Gardens through their generous donations.
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The Rutgers Gardens Student Farm expands into a new greenhouse | |
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The Rutgers Gardens Student Farm is many things: an outdoor classroom, a local food source, a farmers market vendor, and a provider of hands-on experience and internships for Rutgers students. Additionally, the Student Farm is a community partner that donates over 50% of the food grown on site to the Rutgers Student Food Pantry and the Middlesex County food bank. Despite these many positive outcomes, the Student Farm has historically been limited by the timing of the New Jersey growing season, in which outdoor food production primarily occurs from May - September. As most Rutgers students are on campus from September - May, this presents a challenge for reaching the greatest number of students who would benefit from access to fresh, local produce.
With support from the Rutgers—New Brunswick Office of the Chancellor’s Strategic Priorities and Initiatives, construction began on a new greenhouse structure that will expand the timeframe of the Student Farm’s operations, achieving a greater impact among Rutgers students and in the local community.
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Constructing the greenhouse frame | |
Photo of Reed Hertzog, Student Farm staff member,
by Andrew Geller
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Photo of Urban Farm Manager Anahi Nicolas Gaspar by Bella Girtanner | |
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When utility connections are complete, the greenhouse will provide temperature controlled, year-round organic growing space, allowing the Student Farm to increase production of culturally diverse, high-quality seasonal vegetables and herbs to feed Rutgers students and New Brunswick residents. It will become a community gathering place for hands-on workshops, tours, and youth activities, including the 4-H Camp at Rutgers Gardens. And, it will afford Rutgers students and faculty year-round, interdisciplinary experiential learning and research opportunities, amplifying the four pillars of the Academic Master Plan (AMP) for
Rutgers—New Brunswick: a focus on students, community, leadership, and research.
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Over the summer, RGSF interns worked tirelessly to create six 100’ farm rows from scratch under the new structure. Using broadforks and rakes, the team broke through solid ground and incorporated compost to increase the organic matter in the soil and prepare it for planting. The process was laborious and required the students to power through challenging weather and soil conditions.
Farm staff member Bella Girtanner, who creates much of the farm’s Instagram content, wrote in an August post, “Farming is not an easy profession by any means. The work is very physically and mentally demanding, and there are lots of days where you have to really tap into the energy of the millions of farmers who are doing the same work around the world to complete all that needs to be done.”
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Alex Sawatzky demonstrates how to use a broadfork | | |
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The farm is growing lettuce, arugula, and bok choy in the new greenhouse, with the potential to incorporate up to 24 different crops into the new rows when the greenhouse is temperature controlled. Anything growing now that does not get harvested in time to be sold at Cook’s Market will be donated to the Rutgers Student Food Pantry to help feed students and their families.
Adjacent to the greenhouse, a new cooler unit was installed to store the higher produce yield resulting from these added rows. A nearby washing station completes the triad of key resources on the farm to grow, process, and store vegetables for consumption by the campus and local communities. Having these elements geographically close by helps the Student Farm keep gas usage down, since the vegetables are not being transported on Workman vehicles for long distances.
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Please support the Rutgers Gardens Student Farm by visiting their stand on Fridays at Cook’s Market, or you can donate directly towards their efforts to sustainably grow organic vegetables that feed the community. | |
Please note that Cook's Market will be closed on November 29th, the Friday after Thanksgiving Day. | |
Rutgers-SEBS students are establishing roots for professional and personal growth with experiential learning projects | |
The New Jersey Committee of the Garden Club of America has generously supported scholarships to School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS) students participating in experiential learning (EL) projects. These projects are located at Rutgers Gardens and on core Cook campus areas that operate under the umbrella of Rutgers Gardens. The 2024 Millicent Mercer Johnson Scholarship recipients and their EL projects include: | |
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Lucy Alderson
Major: Human Ecology
Revitalizing and Cataloging the Winterberry Holly Collection at
Rutgers Gardens
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Jesse Deming
Major: Plant Science
Restoration of the Foran Hall Conservation Garden on
Cook Campus
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Marian Hollenbeck
Major: Plant Science
Permaculture Garden Installation at the Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health
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Nicole Sensenbach
Major: Landscape Architecture
Developing Interpretive Signage to Engage Visitors at Rutgers Gardens
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Grace Silva
Major: Environmental Engineering
Soil Assessment and Restorative Planting in the Rain Garden at
Rutgers Gardens
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Congratulations to the scholarship recipients! Marian, Grace, Jesse, Nicole, and Lucy are all hardworking, bright, and passionate about achieving good outcomes and delivering impactful results through their efforts.
There are plenty more updates to come as their endeavors are progressing throughout the semester.
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Rutgers Gardens collaborates with Scarlet Arts Rx program to enhance student well-being | | |
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This October, a joint effort to meld the arts, nature, and wellness activities came to fruition when students enrolled in the Byrne Seminars were invited to sculpt flowerpots made from clay that was harvested at Rutgers Gardens. Ryan Lilienthal, a Mason Gross School of the Arts MFA in Design alum who coordinated with Dr. Lauren Errickson to safely extract natural clay from soil at Rutgers Gardens, presented the workshops. Ryan, a recipient of a Scarlet Arts Rx grant for these sessions, shares that “Rutgers Gardens' generous contribution helped [the students] experience the connectedness and grounding that comes with holding and forming clay and their meaningful exploration between the arts and well-being." | |
After the clay flowerpots were sculpted, dried, fired, and cooled, students were able to plant a succulent donated by Rutgers Gardens to complete the take-home craft. | |
Bushra Imran, a student in the Byrne Seminars class, Resilience is Everywhere: How to Find Yours, says “This project was a relaxing experience. It was fascinating to use clay to create something meaningful and purposeful. It offered a unique way to blend art and nature together.” | |
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Scarlet Arts Rx is a partnership between the Mason Gross School of the Arts and the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, with support from the Rutgers–New Brunswick Chancellor’s Office. It is "designed to expand student access to arts activities and events and promote student awareness of the association between the arts and wellness. Students will cultivate the habit of using the arts as a tool to manage stress," according to the program's webpage. | | |
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Adds Lauren Errickson, Director of Rutgers Gardens and Campus Stewardship, "This project is a great example of how Rutgers Gardens can help improve the wellbeing of our students, whether that happens in the Gardens or across campus. It's an amazing thing to see students connecting with plants in a reflective way that also elevates joy as a part of their Rutgers experience."
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Rutgers Gardens is listed as a site on the Scarlet Arts Rx Arts and Well-Being Walking Map, which hopefully brings awareness to students that the gardens and Helyar Woods trails are available to visit when one needs to de-stress and reconnect with nature. | |
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