Students looking to get their green thumbs back in shape before summer can head to Norris University Center’s South Lawn this week to help a new initiative take root.On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. each day, volunteers will be working to plant flowers, vegetables and herbs in the new Wild Roots garden.
Founded as part of last fall’s One Book One Northwestern initiative, the garden has since passed into the care of a planning committee made up of student, Norris and Facilities Management representatives. Student groups including Students for Ecological and Environmental Development, Environmental Campus Outreach, Engineers for a Sustainable World and Tech Graduate Gardens are represented on the committee.
In October, about 35 students helped prepare the plot for winter, said One Book’s program coordinator, Jeff Henderson. Last year’s pick, “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” lent itself to outreach projects such as the garden. The goal was to engage students in the topics of energy and sustainability, and the garden lends itself well to that, he said.
“We thought it would be a wonderful way to bring something tangible and allow students to be part of something past this year,” Henderson said.
The collaboration between groups is one of the unique aspects of the project, said SEED representative Thea Klein-Mayer.
“It seems like a lot of the groups on campus are always doing similar projects, and it’s silly that we weren’t collaborating,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “I like the garden because we have all these representatives from different student groups-not to mention those from Facilities Management and Norris.”
The planning committee hopes Wild Roots will serve a variety of functions, from providing volunteer opportunities to hosting events in the garden, “obviously when it’s warm out,” Klein-Mayer said.
“We were thinking of collaborating with Norris Mini Courses or hosting garden parties or movies,” she said. “We’d like to expand it as interest grows and have it be a place that students know on campus and feel invested in.”
Wild Roots could also eventually become a viable sustainable food project on campus, said Environmental Campus Outreach representative Molly Hoisington. The produce grown this year will be used in Norris, but depending on the size of the garden in future years, that could change, she said.
“We hope that students can learn that it’s really easy to grow your own food,” the Weinberg junior said. “That’s something that people will be able to take away from working here-it’s very sustainable.”
Hoisington’s first suggestion for the name of the garden-NUde Food-was not approved because the planning committee was afraid higher-ups might question the pun, she said. However, her next choice-Wild Roots-was, and the collaborations and plans they have for the future of the garden have more than made up for that small initial disappointment, she said.
“We’re really embroiled in trying to make this work for the coming quarter,” she said. “But the possibilities for what could happen if we have success-they’re really exciting.”
