Photo: Looking up into the sequoia grove in the Memorial Union Quad.
From the quiet shade of towering sequoias to the sunny green lawns crisscrossed with walking paths, Oregon State’s Corvallis campus is a thing of beauty.
With all their effort to maintain that beauty, university landscaping staff want people to take full advantage of OSU’s outdoor spaces. In fact, if landscape manager Todd Cross had his way, the campus would be “Complete, utter chaos,” he said. “Everybody everywhere.”
He has some thoughts about how best to do that.
“The bigger philosophy is that if people engage in nature, they’ll like nature more, and they’ll vote for nature more,” Cross said. “Big picture, it’s the right thing to have people out there.”
1. Wander off the beaten path (respectfully)
Can you walk across the grass, instead of sticking to the sidewalks? Can you sling a hammock to nap between two trees? Can you crawl under the gnarled branches of a decades-old rhododendron?
“Yes, yes, yes. ‘Yes’ is the answer to most of the questions, not ‘no,’ from a philosophical standpoint,” Cross said. “You can interact with the vegetation as long as you control yourself.”
If enough people cut through a flower bed to get to a bike rack, or across the corner of a field to a parking lot, they’ll actually create a “social trail,” which indicates where the flow of foot traffic naturally wants to move. If there’s a safety reason to block people from that area, landscaping staff will intentionally plant things to block it off, but otherwise, they’ll open it up and make the path more permanent.
As for hammocks and slack lines, Cross said they’re encouraged as long as users suspend them properly, with the certified bark-protecting straps to avoid damaging the tree trunks. (In a pinch, you can also cushion the straps with a scrap of old carpet, Cross said.) But be careful not to attach anything to OSU’s decorative lamp poles or other furnishings, as they are not rated to safely uphold the weight and could break or cause injury.
2. Poke around to your heart’s content
When landscaping staff are out working and see someone in a flower bed, they’ll interact and ask what they’re doing, Cross said. And usually, the person is looking at a specific plant or insect, or has a specific question about the space.
“I always want to have an open campus like that, where people feel curious enough to step into something. And those same people — if they’re curious enough to go look, they’re careful enough to not be a bull in a china shop,” he said.
Groundskeepers like to poke around, too. Staff recently uncovered an old concrete slab dating from about 1930 in the Moreland Arboretum, the forested area between Moreland Hall and Dixon Recreation Center. They added a bench there for folks to enjoy the space.
3. Bring a friend
“If I see someone out there and they’re not on their phone, that’s next-level,” Cross said. “It’s OK if they are. But when I see them without it, or I see two people talking to each other, that’s pretty awesome.”
Frisbees, yard games, picnics — they’re all welcome on any of OSU’s lawns, he said. Landscaping staff generally schedule irrigation for evening and nighttime hours so the water doesn’t interfere with people’s enjoyment. (Though they have also been known to turn the sprinklers on when KidSpirit is in the quad on a hot day, just for fun.)
Campus is open to the public, not just OSU students and employees, and a popular activity in Corvallis is metal detecting. Cross said a local club often comes to campus on Saturday mornings, and legally, they’re allowed to keep anything they find; they just can’t leave a hole in the ground.
This outdoor classroom between the College of Pharmacy and Furman Hall features seating and connection to electricity, for any instructors who want to take their students outside.
4. Grab a snack
There are multiple small clusters of edible plants around campus, and a couple of big ones. Behind Callahan Hall, across from the parking lot on SW 15th Street, is the food forest managed by University Housing and Dining Services. Anyone can walk through and sample from the pear, fig, mulberry and apple trees. Just pay attention to signage; several plants (like the zucchini) are grown specifically for the Basic Needs Center and are not to be harvested by anyone else.
There’s also a smaller food forest at the southeast corner of the Student Experience Center with raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries and persimmons. And there are blueberry bushes by the entrance of the Linus Pauling Science Center, and more outside the child care center on SW 11th Street. Cross said landscaping staff never spray any harmful chemicals on plants that people might eat, so snack to your heart’s content.
Fun fact from Cross: OSU is one of the best seed sources for female ginkgo trees in the country. After careful processing to remove the harmful outer layer, ginkgo nuts are edible and popular in East Asian cuisine, but female trees have been nearly eliminated in the U.S. nursery industry because they’re messy when fruiting. OSU happens to have a row of female ginkgo trees by Wiegand Hall, and the university contracts with multiple companies that visit campus a couple times a year to harvest the seeds.
5. Find your spot
Cross’s favorite nooks are under the covered bridge crossing Oak Creek on the west side of campus, and the grove beneath three massive sequoias in the Memorial Union Quad (pictured above).
In that grove, “You’re in the center of activity on campus but nobody knows you’re there,” he said. “You can be quiet and meditative but you can hear everything that’s going on."
What are your preferred spots on campus?
This author is partial to the rhododendron-filled lawn behind Gilkey Hall, which she just learned is actually called People's Park. Unfortunately it's currently blocked off by construction fences, so this photo is from last May.
