The 1.5-acre (0.61ha) site includes a 1-acre (0.40ha)botanical garden and approximately .5-acre (0.20ha) of nursery, shadehouse, and greenhouse zones. The botanic gardens were established shortly after the campus was established in 1959, as a Valley branch of California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). It has grown through the administrations of succeeding San Fernando Valley State College and the present day CSUN Biology Department.[1]
History
The botanical garden was first created in 1959, over 40 years old and originally planted with only California native plants but has since expanded to a collection of over 1,200 plant species. The garden also offers a native food garden over an acre of land. There are four greenhouses in the garden: “a living library of diverse plant specimens, an outdoor classroom for students of all ages and interests, a beautiful refuge for quiet study or strolling, an ever-changing setting to paint or sketch, and a valued community asset”.[2]
The garden is community run and funded through fundraising events. Students of California State University tend to the garden through course focused botany courses. The public also has access to these courses from horticultural experts. The garden itself operates on a water-conserving landscape. California State University Northridge students use these plant species for research projects that include “biological principles, plant biology, plant ecology, plant morphology, plant physiology, and entomology”.[3]
The overall goals for the garden are:
Plants that are attainable and usable for local sustainability landscapes that feature sustainable gardening techniques, water conservation, and saving endangered plants and species, including the bees.
Student accessibility for education and on hands practice for ‘planting ethnobotany insights’.
One of the few remaining historic (circa the 1920s) orange groves is thriving on the southeastern campus quad. The citrus industry was formerly had groves covering much of the San Fernando Valley. The rows of large eucalyptus trees, historic windbreaks for agricultural fields from the late 19th century, are found towering over the perimeters of the campus, surviving planners developing campus expansions with valor.[4]
California State University has the recognition of the Bee Campus USA certification. This fostered a great opportunity for pollinator-focused efforts throughout the gardens that allows students, volunteers and facility to improve the health of the vital pollinator populations. In November 2018, California State University Northridge was certified as a Bee Campus USA affiliate.[5]
California State University Northridge has an official Sustainability Day every year on October 24, which is recognized throughout the campus, school and faculty. In 2019 the university focused on the topic of biodiversity loss. They highlighted prime examples of the different impacts and losses on ecosystems, populations and cultures. California State University Northridge's Dr. Rachel Mackelprang, biology professor, discussed the possible threats of the honey bee populations that are a worldwide threat. She highlighted the importance of these pollinators and discusses their vital role in pollinating a myriad of food products.
Dr. Mackelpang also discussed the research and work done on the honey bees in California State University Northridge's own orange grove and the impacts and role that the university plays in creating an improvement for the community and world.[6]
In 2020 California State University Northridge and community partners turned the unused corners of CSUN's garden into a safe haven for pollinators, such as the hummingbirds and bees. These species are critical to growing the planet's food supply.
These areas created learning opportunities for students from numerous colleges, not just the California State University of Northridge. They provided learning outcomes from majors of science, social services, humanities, history, and urban studies. These areas gave the community room to explore, grow and learn about the city's history. Organizers included local children in the building expansion, which fostered learning for these endangered pollinators.
CSUN and a team of community partners are turning unused corners of the city into safe havens for bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators that are critical to growing the planet's food supply.
Once the pockets are planted and built, Zappia said, he hopes they will provide extra learning opportunities for CSUN students from several different colleges — including science, social services, humanities, urban studies, and history majors — giving them a chance to explore the community and learn more about the city's rich history in a hands-on way. The organizers also hope to involve local school children in the project, to teach them the importance of pollinators and about the dwindling bee population.
California State University has minimized the use of pesticides that could be or are potential harmful for the bee populations and other at risk pollinators.[7]
Management
The CSUN Botanical Garden is open for everyone without charge from Monday through Friday from 8:00am to 4:45pm on CSUN's campus. The garden is closed on weekends and university holidays. In specific cases, management may also close the Botanical Garden on unexpected days or hours during cases of severe weather.
The CSUN Botanical Garden is located in the southeast quadrant of California State University, Northridge. The location includes a botanical garden with a variety of unique plants, a nursery, a shade house, and greenhouse areas.
Brenda Kanno is the Instructional Support Technician and Garden/Greenhouse manager for CSUN's Botanical Garden. Brenda has won a trophy from the Los Angeles International Fern Society annual show and sale at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in 2007 for Most Unusual Fern for the fern Elaphoglossum Lucidum.
Ann Dorsey is the Instructional Support Technician Assistant and Garden/Greenhouse Assistant for CSUN's Botanical Garden. Ann has published a chapter on Flora and the ecology of the Santa Monica Mountains in 2007 for the Southern California Botanists' special publication in Fullerton, CA.
The CSUN Botanical Garden department staff can be contacted by either Email or telephone. Individuals interested in finding more information about the CSUN Botanical Garden can contact the staff via email. Their telephone may be reached at (818)-677-3496. The department staff may also be faxed at (818)-677-2034.
Collections
The Botanic Garden was originally planted exclusively with Californian native plants in 1959. Since then the garden has evolved and expanded into a diverse collection representing diverse different geographic regions and themes, with over 1,200 species and cultivars present.
The Botanic Garden is open to the public Monday to Friday, 8:00a.m. to 4:45p.m. It is closed on weekends and university holidays, and occasionally during extreme weather.[9] The entrance is reached via parking structures off Nordhoff or Zelzah (depending on campus construction).[10]
The CSUN Botanic Garden has short courses on a wide variety of garden topics by horticultural experts for the public.[11] It also sponsors 'CSUN-al Gardening', a series of four free gardening-themed classes a year.[12] The gardens also gives K-12 school tours.[13]
Some fun public activities include the CSUN-al Gardening. A free gardening class that is offered four times a year: Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. Each class is themed for that season, an example is in Summer 2019 with a class called Orchid Mania. Arthur Pinkers taught the class various ways of how different orchid species could be taken care of and raised. To join the class early registration is required and must be emailed to the Botanic Garden. As of right now, there are no classes available to register for in the upcoming year 2022.[14]
Another activity available at the Botanic Gardens is tours that are offered to local schools from Kindergarten to College level at no charge. The tours can vary between 20 and 40 minutes and can be increased to be more in-depth. Group sizes are best limited to 20 or fewer attendees per tour guide. To be able to schedule a tour for the garden, you can reach a host by calling (818) 677–3496. The tour needs to be planned far in advance because a minimum of 4 weeks is needed for the best tour date. Directions and parking can be found on the csun.edu website. Special arrangements will need to be made for buses. Groups arriving by car are encouraged to carpool as space is limited in campus parking lots. Parking fees are $6 (up to 4 hours) or $8 (over 4 hours) per car. As of right now in 2022 the garden is off-limits to the public due to health concerns and tours are paused until further notice.[15]
Volunteer work
The Northridge Botanical Garden is maintained by facility staff and volunteers. Volunteers are an essential part to the garden in making sure the plants are taken care of and that bigger projects on site are completed in record time. Meetings are held on Thursday morning from 8:30 to 11:30 at the Greenhouse Complex. Registering to become a volunteer isn't required, but Volunteer Release forms need to be completed the first time a person joins the group. The rules are lax but for safety reasons, a volunteer needs to wear appropriate attire such as closed shoes and gardening clothes.
Most of the tasks completed by volunteers are simple and light. Activities such as weeding, starting seeds, transplanting, soil mixing, propagation, minor pruning, composting, grooming of plant material, and repotting are often done. These tasks can be completed singularly or in groups.
The benefits of being a volunteer result in long lasting abilities in gardening. Some aspects learned during the work sessions include taking inventory, labeling, record entry, seed collection, etc. Most use the volunteer work at the Botanical Gardens to learn how to care for plants before applying it on their own at home.
It's encouraged to partake in plant trades between volunteers at the Botanical Garden. The main goal of the garden is to have a large diversity in the collection and it's in the best interest of the garden to have duplicates. If there was ever a chance that a plant was to be lost in the garden, another one can be located in the volunteer's garden. It's preferred to have named specimens that enhance the collection for class use. Surplus plant material generated by volunteer work projects is available for adoption by Garden Volunteers.[16]
CSUN's botany garden has been featured in many articles, websites and media over the years. One of the most notable is the garden's feature as one of the 50 “most amazing” university gardens by Best Colleges Online. The garden has also been featured on the university own CSUN Today, highlighting the gardens history and commentary from the garden's manager Brena Kanno. The garden was featured in the Daily Sundial in 2022,[17] as well as a hit feature in the LA Times in 2000.[18]
California State University Northridge offers a wide variety of courses surrounding the use of the gardens. These courses are available to students and facility. The garden itself is available for free access to all but the course allows students to generate research projects in biology, plant biology, plant morphology, plant physiology and entomology.
CSUN Today has written the following about the Botanic Garden: "CSUN’s Botanic Garden is operated by the university’s Department of Biology and serves as a field site for botany, entomology, photography, painting and other classes. In addition to geographically themed plantings and a butterfly garden, the garden also features greenhouses where noteworthy botanical specimens are grown."[19]
The garden also offer free academic tours for K-12 and college students. Tours are typically 20–40 minutes, but can be arranged for a longer tour time. Group sizes are recommended to fewer than 20 peoples.
The garden also is usable as an event site for weddings, private parties, filming for TV, commercial use, and music videos. Pricing is unknown, as well as features in any of these event areas.[20]
Northridge is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The community is home to California State University, Northridge, and the Northridge Fashion Center.
California State University, Northridge is a public university in the Northridge neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, United States. With a total enrollment of 38,551 students, it has the second largest undergraduate population as well as the third largest total student body in the California State University system, making it one of the largest comprehensive universities in the United States in terms of enrollment size. The size of CSUN also has a major impact on the California economy, with an estimated $1.9 billion in economic output generated by CSUN on a yearly basis. As of Fall 2021, the university had 2,187 faculty, of which 794 were tenured or on the tenure track.
A wildlife garden is an environment created with the purpose to serve as a sustainable haven for surrounding wildlife. Wildlife gardens contain a variety of habitats that cater to native and local plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, mammals and so on, and are meant to sustain locally native flora and fauna. Other names this type of gardening goes by can vary, prominent ones being habitat, ecology, and conservation gardening.
The 1994 Northridge earthquake was a moment magnitude 6.7, blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST in the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The quake had a duration of approximately 10–20 seconds, and its peak ground acceleration of 1.82 g was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America. Shaking was felt as far away as San Diego, Turlock, Las Vegas, Richfield, Phoenix, and Ensenada. The peak ground velocity at the Rinaldi Receiving Station was 183 cm/s, the fastest ever recorded.
Beneficial insects are any of a number of species of insects that perform valued services like pollination and pest control. The concept of beneficial is subjective and only arises in light of desired outcomes from a human perspective. In agriculture, where the goal is to raise selected crops, insects that hinder the production process are classified as pests, while insects that assist production are considered beneficial. In horticulture and gardening, beneficial insects are often considered those that contribute to pest control and native habitat integration.
The University Library at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) is located in Northridge, in the northern San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles, California.
The Mildred E. Mathias Botanical Garden is a 7-acre (2.8 ha) botanical garden with over 3,000 species of plants, located on the southeastern corner of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus. It is named after Mildred Esther Mathias Hassler (1906–1995), a noted American botanist. The director is Victoria Sork. It is also the only free public botanical garden in the Greater Los Angeles area.
The Michigan State University Horticulture Gardens are horticultural gardens, with a landscape arboretum, located on Bogue Street on the Michigan State University campus in East Lansing, Michigan. The gardens are open to the public daily without charge.
The Chicago Botanic Garden is a 385-acre (156 ha) living plant museum situated on nine islands in the Cook County Forest Preserves. It features 27 display gardens and five natural habitats including Mary Mix McDonald Woods, Barbara Brown Nature Reserve, Dixon Prairie, the Skokie River Corridor, and the Lakes and Shorelines. The garden is open every day of the year. An admission fee has been approved to start in 2022, not to exceed $35.
Premier America Credit Union Arena, formerly Matador Gymnasium, and formerly known by its nickname the Matadome, is a 2,500 seat, indoor multi-purpose stadium on the campus of California State University, Northridge in Northridge, California. The Matadome was renovated in 2014. With the renovation, the arena now has a capacity of 2,500.
Jolene Koester is an American university administrator, economic board member, and author. She served as the 4th president of California State University, Northridge from July 2000 to December 2011, and as the interim Chancellor of the California State University system from 2022 to 2023. Koester holds a Ph.D. in speech communication.
Esha Momeni is an Iranian-American scholar and women's rights activist. She was a member of One Million Signatures campaign.
The Cal State Northridge Matadors are the athletic teams that represent California State University, Northridge in Northridge, Los Angeles, California. The Matadors field 17 teams in nineteen sports. The Matadors compete in NCAA Division I and are members of the Big West Conference. CSUN has been a member of the Big West Conference since the summer of 2001 for most sports. The men's and women's indoor track and field teams compete in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation instead. Men's volleyball also competed in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation, but began to compete in the Big West beginning in 2018.
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Dianne F. Harrison is a retired American university administrator and former social worker. She was the president of California State University, Monterey Bay from 2006 through 2012. In June 2012, she became the fifth president of California State University, Northridge, where she retired in January 2021. Previously, she worked for thirty years at Florida State University.
Erika Drew Beck is an American academic administrator serving as the president of California State University, Northridge. She was previously president of California State University Channel Islands.
Jeremy B. Yoder is an American evolutionary biologist, science communicator and LGBTQIA+ advocate. He is an assistant professor of biology at California State University, Northridge.
Maria Elena Zavala is an American plant biologist. She was the first Mexican-American woman to earn a PhD in botany in the United States. She is currently a full professor of biology at the California State University-Northridge, studying plant development. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the first Latina fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists, the first Latina fellow of the American Society of Cell Biology, and an elected fellow of the Institute of Science. In 2000, she was awarded the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, which recognises individuals who have increased the participation of underrepresented minorities in their fields.
A pollinator garden is a type of garden designed with the intent of growing specific nectar and pollen-producing plants, in a way that attracts pollinating insects known as pollinators. Pollinators aid in the production of one out of every three bites of food consumed by humans, and pollinator gardens are a way to offer support for these species. In order for a garden to be considered a pollinator garden, it should provide various nectar producing flowers, shelter or shelter-providing plants for pollinators, and avoid the use of pesticides.
↑ "2009 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments"(PDF), U.S. and Canadian Institutions Listed by Fiscal Year 2009 Endowment Market Value and Percentage Change in Endowment Market Value from FY 2008 to FY 2009, National Association of College and University Business Officers, archived from the original(PDF) on 2017-12-14, retrieved 2022-05-02
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