Landscape Arboretum

Wetland Garden

The Sustainable Wetland Garden, located on campus near the Widener Building and Cottage Hall, is a working demonstration of sustainable principles and management. They use the solar pergola, a wooden structure that supports the solar photo-voltaic panels and creates a garden room with a sense of enclosure. They also use the exposed cullet (recycled glass) paving. The garden is made entirely of native species and comprises several diverse habitats. The wetland portion functions as a bio-filter - the vegetation and microorganisms filter out pollution that is generated from the surrounding buildings. The garden is a perfect expression of the integration of architecture into the landscape. It is a beautiful model of how the landscape can mitigate the detrimental impacts of our built environment. Read more >>

Green Roof

At the 2002 Philadelphia Flower Show, Temple University Ambler Landscape Architecture and Horticulture students provided the inspiration for the current green roof research taking place at the Ambler campus. Three years later, Temple University Ambler unveiled a working green roof atop the new Intercollegiate Athletics Field House, built with the assistance of a $50,000 grant from PECO, an Exelon Company. Extensive green roof systems generally have planting media depths of less than one foot that support low-growing plants with a shallow root base. The PECO Green Roof is of the extensive variety, supporting colonies of carefully selected plants, all native to the region, in approximately six inches of a lightweight medium. Read more >>

Green House

Continuing the tradition of hands-on education, the LA/HORT design build studio in spring 2001 took on the task to design and build a welcoming entrance garden for the newly finished greenhouse on Ambler Campus. The goal was to create a sense of identity and arrival for the greenhouse. The design creates a formal circular terrace at the main entrance and an informal garden along the main pedestrian walkway to the campus. The formal entrance features a stone retaining wall that defines a circular terrace featuring a raised round planter as the focal point. The bluestone terrace with decorative lighting and cobblestone edging provides a pleasant outdoor gathering area that is used for holding campus events. The gently contoured informal garden, with a rich variety of herbaceous plantings around an open lawn area, serves as a counterpoint to the formal terrace. Read more >>

Ernesta Ballard Healing Garden

Named for Ernesta Drinker Ballard, a pioneering woman for both Temple University Ambler and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, this rain garden highlights medicinal plants with healing properties and demonstrates an aesthetic example of storm water management. Rain water is collected from the roof of Dixon Hall and piped through a vegetated swale that allows the water to infiltrate back into the ground. The garden is an adaptive re-use of a Temple Ambler Philadelphia Flower Show Display, Nature Nurtures, and also includes native trees, shrubs, and grassy meadow areas surrounding a stone labyrinth.

Sustainability Day

On October 22, 2008, volunteers took action on campus to improve native plant diversity in the Landscape Arboretum. After pulling invasive English Ivy (Hedera helix) from the Woodland Garden, over 100 native trees and shrubs were planted in the Ernesta Ballard Healing Garden and the Woodland Garden. Students, staff, and faculty volunteers donated over 75 hours to help improve their campus. Obtaining plants from local nurseries, some of the plant species included Striped Maple (Acer pensylvanicum), Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia), Carolina Allspice (Calycanthus floridus), Witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana), Lowbush Blueberries (Vaccinium angustifolium), and many native rhododendrons, azaleas, and viburnums.

Energy Efficient Building

Shifting the central focus of the campus, the Ambler Learning Center provides greater learning opportunities for students and provide an innovative site for educational and community events. The Learning Center is equipped with 385 computers, fully integrated multimedia technology, and wireless access throughout the building. Read more >>

Stormwater Management

Loop Road Parking Area and Bio-infiltration Basins: These spaces will meet the parking demand created by the students who live on campus and for future events held at the Learning Center. Plans are to include 160 spaces and four infiltration basins with curbs and concrete conveyance to move water to swale into basin. The goal of the basins is to increase flow into Rose Valley Creek. See student conceptual designs and final construction plans below.

Learning Center Stormwater Basin Retrofits: There are currently two basins on south of Loop Road that receive stormwater runoff from the Learning Center parking area. Water drains from these basins through two pipes under Loop Road to the larger stormwater basin on the north side of Loop Road. The Center for Sustainable Communities applied for Growing Greener Grant funds from DEP to retrofits these facilities with a goal of infiltrating one inch of water and replanting the basins with wetland species to make them maintenance free.

Recycle Drive

Between October and November of 2005, Temple University Ambler didn't just make a rush to recycle. It was an all-out charge. On Sunday, December 15, the Department of Environmental Protection announced that Temple University Ambler had taken top honors in its Rush to Recycle Challenge. Ambler came in first place in the "Existing Recycling Programs” category by increasing the baseline level of recycling per student, by an astounding 268 percent. The Rush to Recycle Challenge pitted 19 colleges and universities across the Commonwealth, that are members of the Pennsylvania Consortium for Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy, against one another to see which school could increase its recycling efforts the most over an eight-week period. Temple University Ambler collected a total of 21,947 pounds of recyclables during the Challenge period. On November 15, to commemorate America Recycles Day, Ambler collected almost 6,600 pounds of recyclables in a single day!
 

Composting

This project started as Karen Watt’s senior project when she was a Horticulture student at Ambler College. All herbaceous and woody organic materials are composted on site at the Landscape Arboretum using a windrow method of open composting. Organic material is placed in long, narrow piles and turned frequently to aid in aeration during the decomposition process. Finished compost is used in the Arboretum planting beds, mixed containers, and greenhouse crops. Compost is also sterilized for use in various University research experiments.

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If you have a project, send it to us. Please contact meenar@temple.edu
 

Over the summer and into the fall 2007, the ACSC met with Kurt Bresser, Energy Manager at Main Campus Facilities, and held follow-up discussions culminating in a set of recommendations for energy conservation and alternative energy generation on Ambler Campus. The goal of the ACSC is to use Ambler Campus as a lab and a model for many initiatives that could be implemented on Main Campus. If you are interested in having a wind turbine on our campus or learning how to conduct an energy audit then volunteer on the Energy Workgroup. Read the report >>