Curious about the fall foliage on campus? Kent State Today spoke to Rebekkah Berryhill, university grounds manager, to find out more about the changing trees on campus. Below, Berryhill shares not only what types of trees we enjoy on the Kent Campus but also talks about the careful process her team and University Facilities Management follows in order to be good stewards of our beautiful landscape.
"Summer conditions typically dictate what types of fall colors we will experience. Sadly, we had the major flooding event sandwiched between two drought periods this year, so I’m not terribly optimistic that we will dazzle the leaf peepers this season. But not all hope is lost – we can still rely on the perennial showstoppers like the Acer rubrum, whose common name is Red Maple. It is the most populous tree on campus and often has a showy range of dark red to orange coloration. Or, the Liquidambar styraciflua, known as the Sweetgum, whose individual leaves can contain a full rainbow on a single leaf at one time. The Nyssa sylvatica, Black Tupelo, is a dramatic lipstick red color. And the Ginkgo biloba, which populated the earth almost 300 million years ago, are a Kent State favorite for their brilliant bright golden color!
"Our team combines with the University Facilities Management's Fleet Services to start prepping our leaf shredding, blowing and collection equipment around July. The first leaves to fall are typically the compound type of leaves, like the Gleditsia triacanthos, or Honey Locust tree, which usually starts around mid-September. We aren’t quick to collect the Honey Locust leaves because they are generally so small that they are easily shredded by our mow crew.
"We try to be as kind to the environment as we can, and one of the beneficial things that we can do is shred as many leaves as we can versus collecting them. If you think about how trees would grow in their 'native' environments, fallen leaf litter provides a nursing ground for seedlings and prevents unwanted invasive plants from sprouting up. Trees appreciate having the organic buffer between them and the harsh conditions that we expose them to in the urban landscapes. Shredded leaves help improve our water quality by preventing erosion and aiding in soil structure. Lastly, we can reduce the amount of labor hours it takes to collect the leaves from the 5,000-plus catalogued trees on campus.
"We do ensure that our campus community stays safe by blowing off campus hardscapes each day, because we all know how slippery the surfaces can become if we experience a rainy day. We will typically have ten to 15 groundskeepers with backpack blowers, two turbine blowers mounted on tractors and two large leaf collector boxes running during the peak drop. We are noisy and we are dusty during that period, but we create some monster leaf piles on campus that can provide a couple of hours of entertainment for anyone wanting to feel like a kid again.
"When the big drop happens, usually it is a three- to four-week period of nothing but collection. We have a Class IV composting site on campus, and over a several years-long process we turn all of the collected leaves into a leaf humus that can be used to amend our campus soils. We regulate what is contained in the humus by only allowing campus leaf litter into our site. We keep tight records that are checked by the EPA to make sure that we produce a safe compost and won’t do any harm to our plants when we reuse the material. We don’t measure our leaves in terms of weight instead we use volume, and last year we composted a total of over 700 yards of tree debris on campus.
"Pretty cool that we kept all of that out of a landfill and reused the leaves in our soils. We also chip our woody material and use it for mulch. It’s the circle of life."