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Preservation Case Study: The Nichols Arboretum In 1906 several parcels of rolling farmland, woodlots, and river frontage were pieced together to form the site for a new botanical garden and arboretum for the University of Michigan. Even at that early date, the countryside surrounding Ann Arbor was becoming more intensively cultivated. In a few years, according to one of the arboretum’s founders, Frederick C. Newcombe, “it would no longer furnish an opportunity to study vegetation in natural conditions.” Ossian Cole Simonds, a nationally prominent landscape architect and alumnus of the university, was called upon to design the open spaces, circulation, and plantings for the new landscape. It opened to the public the following year. The steep, glaciated topography and gravelly soils were not able to support the wide array of plants necessary for a true botanic garden, however, and the diverse herbaceous specimens were soon moved to another site, and Aubrey Tealdi, chair of the university’s program in landscape design, became the new director of the arboretum. Over two decades Tealdi planted a large number of trees, shrubs, and climbers appropriate to the site which gave form to Simonds’s plan. Old photographs capture both the quiet and dramatic beauty of this landscape. During the 1920s automobiles, sledders, and skiers began to inflict serious damage on the arboretum. By the mid-1930s the idea that the site should be turned into a sports facility was gaining support among faculty and students. But Tealdi fought back, arguing that the property would be uniquely valuable as “a haven of quiet one hundred years from now when our rich native flora will have become a thing of the past.” Tealdi and his cohorts won the day. Cars were banned and WPA workers laid out over three miles of new hiking trails. The trees grew, wildflowers multiplied, and the arboretum came to fulfill its promise as a “haven of quiet.” Over the ensuing post-World War II decades, the arboretum again came under siege, this time from invasive species. Buckthorn, honeysuckle, common privet, oriental bittersweet, Norway maple and other non-native plants took hold and thrived, threatening to obliterate the original design entirely. Important views were blocked and species were crowded out. As a partial result, the loose soil supporting carefully laid trails became severely eroded. A recently implemented preservation program is helping renew the vitality of Simonds’s visionary plan. Under the directorship of Robert E. Grese, associate professor in the department of landscape architecture and author of the new introduction to Simonds’s 1920 book, Landscape-Gardening, invasive species are being removed, controlled burning conducted, historic trails re-laid, river-edge erosion curbed, bird habitat restored and—perhaps most dramatic—critical views opened. The work has been undertaken by spirited students, staff, faculty, and community volunteers. New plantings are being added, too. The Nichols Arboretum—and all historic landscapes—are places of evolution and change, both culturally and ecologically. As Grese writes: Photographs: |
