Part of ‘Waterosity: Go Green with a Splash’, the new art installations educate people on the importance of water conservation. The exhibit has three components – ‘Intriguing Art in the Garden’, which presents the water dancers and pond monster along with eight other large-scale installations; ‘Harvest Your Rain’, which encourages visitors to rethink how they handle rainwater; and ‘Cutting Edge on Lawns’, which focuses on water-wise gardening and lawn grasses of the future.
Designed by the students of Gordon Parks High School and a group of new landscape architects, Global Spydrology, vertical metal columns up to 10 feet tall representing the volume of freshwater consumed per capita each day in 12 countries around the world, is one of the striking works featured in the exhibition.
Bruce Lemke designed ‘Pond Monster’ lurks in the scum of Iris Pond to ‘get kids out to the arboretum and in nature’. Landscaping ideas are creatively displayed in ‘Harvest Your Rain’ that utilizes rainwater including rain barrels that catch drainpipe runoff, a permanent green roof where sedum and prairie grass grow on top of a picnic shelter to regulate the temperature within, and a rain garden, a flower-filled bowl-like dip in a lawn that holds rainwater longer.
‘Cutting Edge’ displays the futuristic prairie junegrass of the university. The arboretum has also reduced its use of pesticides and added a new strategic sprinkler system in the Nelson Shrub Rose Garden at the end of May to make irrigation more efficient.
Running until October 4, 2009, entry to the Waterosity is included in the arboretum’s cost of admission, which is free for university students, while non university students have to pay $9 for entrance.
