Marian College students prompted the contemporary restoration by alerting Marian College faculty Ron Weiss and David Benson and then vice president Sr. Norma Rocklage about the dire state of affairs in “the wetlands” in the Spring 2000. An initial “clean up day” was held in the Fall 2001 where students, faculty, and staff (including the college president) helped remove accumulated trash along the access road into the EcoLab. Several years, and over a million dollars later, the EcoLab has been transformed from an area choked with non-natives to a very high-quality natural area.
The mission of the EcoLab considers involving others in its restoration a high priority. All student groups are offered the opportunity of gaining hands-on experience with the art and science of environmental restoration. We believe strongly that the best way to help young people (and, those not so young) understand the importance of responsible environmental stewardship is to actually have them get their hands a little dirty! All are invited to participate in the EcoLab’s monthly “conservation days” at 9 a.m. the third Saturday of each month beginning at the Colonnade. Volunteers are also needed any time to help with restoration projects such as planting native species, removing exotics, and other restoration activities.
The current restoration builds upon a “restoration” project that began in 1912 with Jens Jensen’s plantings. He used native plant species in ecologically sensible locations. Understanding the effects of Jensen’s work is very important.
The following is from a publication by Benson in 2004. “Because restoration ecology is a new science and most restoration projects are relatively recent and go unmonitored, there is a need for case studies documenting the long term success of restoration work (Zedler 2000). Landscape architecture has a long history and if done using native plants in ecologically sensible locations and groupings, can imitate environmental restoration. The early twentieth century landscape architect, Jens Jensen for example, was well known for his knowledge and use of natives (Grese 1992). Commenting on the evolution of his design from exotics to natives he wrote “…we were trying to force plants to grow where they don’t want to grow. And then I took less and less pleasure in looking at these formal designs. They were always the same. There was no swaying of leaves in the wind, no mysterious play of light and shade. I was becoming more and more appreciative of the beauty and decorative quality of the native flora of this country (Jensen 1939).”
“Jensen often would have a more formal planting near an estate that would include some non-indigenous varieties. Separate from this formal planting would be a naturalistic portion of the design where native species would be planted in massive quantities in small areas to simulate a more natural look and allow for selection and randomness to determine which would thrive or die. For example, in the naturalistic portion of one estate design he designated that 560 Butternut Hickory (Juglans cinerea) and 560 Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) be planted in a 1300 m2 area.”
“Unfortunately, there are few Jensen landscapes that have been left intact or unchanged. One of the better preserved Jensen landscapes, planted in 1912, is now on the campus of Marian College in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. About 30 acres of the estate designed by Jensen for James Allison, founder of the Indianapolis 500 and Allison Transmission, has been left mostly untouched for the last 90 years. In this study, I examine the success of Jensen’s restoration by comparing his original planting plan with remaining first and subsequent generation growth from that planting and also assess quality of the resultant landscape as a natural area."
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