For Immediate Release
Contact:
Leslie Weddell
(719) 389-6038
Leslie.Weddell@ColoradoCollege.edu
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – April 26, 2010 – In an effort to assist the financially strapped city of Colorado Springs, Colorado College is adopting the Cascade Avenue median that runs through campus, providing not only time and labor, but also the financial support to help maintain the award-winning median.
This means that not only will the college plant and maintain the flower beds, which it has done in the past, but that the college also will assume the cost for watering the area, including all turf, trees, flowers and shrubs. It also will pay for the fertilizer and seeds, and will plant several new trees in the median, which runs from Uintah Avenue to Cache La Poudre Street.
For Colorado Springs’ 2010 Arbor Day celebration and to note the city’s 33rd year as a “Tree City USA,” a tree-planting ceremony will take place at 10 a.m., Friday, April 30, on Cutler Quad on the Colorado College campus. Representatives from City Forestry, Colorado Springs Fire Department, Wildland Fire, Colorado Springs Utilities, Friends of Monument Valley Park, the Old North End Neighborhood and the Colorado State Forest Service will be in attendance. The ceremony also commemorates the fact that for the 15th consecutive year, Colorado Springs Utilities has been named a “Tree Line USA utility.”
The college plans on planting 10 new trees (one maple, six crab apples and three oaks), as well as three Canadian cherry trees donated by the Old North End Neighborhood. The three cherry trees will be planted together, symbolizing the collaboration between Colorado College, the Old North End Neighborhood and Colorado Springs Utilities.
In keeping with its sustainability and cost-cutting efforts, the college has selected native drought- and disease-tolerant plants for the area. Jerry Switzer, grounds supervisor at Colorado College, estimates it will cost the college between $3,500 and $4,500 this year to water the median, an area of about 42,000 square feet. With the careful selection of plants and controlled watering, the median will look just as welcoming as in the past, but with less water usage, Switzer said. “We’re trying to have better water usage and still have a better product.
“The center median is part of the campus, as much as any other place,” Switzer said of the college’s decision to take on the costs of maintaining the area. “The cost to us is worth it to keep the continuity and beauty of the campus throughout.”
Additionally, the college has planted xeric grasses and shrubs in two beds on Nevada Avenue, and has assumed all the costs for watering and maintaining those beds.
For information, directions or disability accommodation at the event, members of the public may call (719) 389-6607.
About Colorado College
Colorado College is a nationally prominent, four-year liberal arts college that was founded in Colorado Springs in 1874. The college operates on the innovative Block Plan, in which its 1,975 undergraduate students study one course at a time in intensive 3½-week blocks. The college also offers a master of arts in teaching degree. For more information, visit www.ColoradoCollege.edu <http://www.ColoradoCollege.edu>