 "Photo: Shelley Neuman")
About 67 UT Landscape Services employees mow the grass, plant new flowers and spray for pests on campus to keep the area looking beautiful for visitors, students, faculty and staff.
To prepare for spring commencement, Landscape Services is removing and replanting the grass in the Main Mall because of the "wear and tear" students inflict on the grass every day, Facilities Services Manager John Burns said. The University budgets $12,000 to $15,000 every year to replace the grass.
UT spends $1.8 million annually on labor and on supplies such as pesticides, fertilizers and equipment needed to ensure the grounds are kept "up to par" by the University's standards, he said.
The pesticide Dursban was used throughout campus until it was pulled off the market in 2000. The only time the University uses pesticides is to treat for fire ants, and the pesticide they use is not harmful to people, animals or other insects.
"We don't spray pesticides on campus as a preventative," Burns said. "However, we do spray if fire ants are at a critical stage and doing significant damage."
All public universities and state agencies must be licensed through the Texas Department of Agriculture and must have a noncommercial pesticide applicator license to spray. UT has three licensed personnel and a fourth that will be licensed soon, he said.
University workers and state agency employees must also attend classes approved by the Department of Agriculture that keep attendees up-to-date on laws and regulations concerning pesticides.
Along with the occasional spraying, Landscape Services mows the grass during spring, replaces plants in garden beds and removes weeds from the grass almost every day. Native and adaptive plants are chosen by the University because they can survive with less water.
Burns said the University plans to switch all of the University's sprinkler systems to automatic because some are still manual. If the University acquires these automated irrigation systems, it would provide a more cost-effective solution to watering the plants.
Landscape Services also tries to be eco-friendly by participating in UTakeCharge, an energy management and conservation program designed to promote electricity and water savings in buildings.
"As a department, we recycle all of our leaves into compost," Burns said. "The green materials, mainly tree limbs and some brush, are recycled by a separate company that grinds up the green materials into mulch."
To add to the green effort, UT is researching which natural fertilizers are best for the environment and vegetation. Burns said his department hopes to start using these natural fertilizers in fall 2008. The total fertilizer cost last year was less than $15,000, he said.
"In the past, the fertilizers had to be picked by the state and we were tied to buying what they had available," Burns said. "Just this past year, they said we could buy our own fertilizers."
Forester Larry Maginnis, who works with more than 4,800 trees on campus, said UT does not treat all of the trees individually with fertilizers because of the cost involved, but trees do receive some of the residual from the grass, he said.
"I have to juggle the resources I have and try to provide for all of the trees on campus," Maginnis said.
The only threatening issue to trees on campus is Oak Wilt, which is a lethal fungal disease that grows in the water-conducting vessels of Red, Live and White Oak tree families. This disease has sparked the most aggressive training programs in Texas because the disease can spread to other trees.
"We treat for Oak Wilt because it has the ability to become an epidemic," he said.
Maginnis said injecting medicines into the trees has no effect on other materials on campus. Most sprays Landscape Services could use would require a 24-hour re-entry period because of health issues and potentially staining the buildings, he said.
"I cannot focus on one single tree, because it economically is not feasible," Maginnis said. "We try not to bombard [trees] with pesticides."
Some of the threats to the trees on campus are man-made threats, such as road paving and trenching.
Burns said hard work is the most crucial factor in keeping the landscape on campus so neat and clean. Along with weekly maintenance of the campus grounds, a litter patrol has been put in place to watch the campus daily and pick up debris left by students in heavily trafficked areas, such as the West Mall and the Perry-Castañeda Library.
"There is a lot of trash generated and some of it is just careless, but most of it is trash from trash cans that we have to empty two to three times a day," Burns said. "It is the labor of mowing once a week, the mulching of all of the shrub beds to reduce water use and weed growth, and having a litter patrol that keeps this University looking good all the time."
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