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This spring, 60 student and employee volunteers helped transform bare dirt surrounding the Student Success Center, which opened in early 2025, into a native landscape. The freshly planted area is now dotted with young grasses, flowering plants, shrubs and trees — about 4,000 plants in total ­— that are native to local ecosystems.

The effort was led by Matt Shinderman, a natural resources instructor and the director of the Human and Ecosystem Resiliency and Sustainability Lab. In the early days of the design of the ����vlog���-Cascades campus, Shinderman helped plant (no pun intended) the vision for a landscape plan that supports the campus’s larger sustainability goals, reducing water and energy consumption, enhancing teaching and learning, and attracting pollinators and other wildlife.

“It’s been gratifying to see other areas around campus that have been planted over the years and how they now reflect the initial vision, as well as ����vlog���’s land grant mission of education and sustainability,” said Shinderman.

The Student Success Center planting effort embraced about 28,000 sq. ft. of gently sloping land that all but surrounds the building. Campus planners had worked with contractors to develop a landscape design that also included space for a half-court for basketball, and outdoor ping-pong table and gathering areas – all recommended by students -- as well as walkways and management for snowmelt and water runoff.

The planting effort took place over five days, including a campus day of service. Students from a few natural resources classes, including one of Shinderman’s, came into the field to help plant while learning about native plant materials and soils. The HERS Lab team, about 10 strong, came out in force to lend muscle and expertise. And several employees each grabbed a shovel, too.

Visitors can now find plants around the Student Success Center that they might come across while hiking on local recreation trails: shrubs like sagebrush with its distinctive scent, and serviceberry, which produces vibrant red berries in summer.

Close to the ground, they’ll notice perennial grasses like Idaho fescue, which is plentiful in other areas of campus, and bluebunch wheatgrass, both which will gradually carpet the ground in subtle greens, blues and straw-colored yellows, doing mighty work controlling erosion.

And in early summer, they might see hummingbirds as they seek nectar in the poker-hot red, trumpet flowers of the scarlet gilia. Or they’ll notice bees hovering over tightly-bunched white flowers of the yarrow, dainty pink petals of phlox flowers or clusters of blue flax blossoms.

“This landscape reflects days of hard work contributed by so many people, students in particular, and it will be here for decades to come. What a legacy our volunteers have created and what a gift for future generations of students,” said Shinderman.