By the spring, the Andover community will be able to see the hard work of 14 students and faculty members–in the form of cobalt blue flowers. The 14 spent last Saturday morning planting 2,000 scilla bulbs between Foxcroft and Bartlet Halls.
Organized by the Campus Beautification Committee, the bulb-planting project was originally part of Non Sibi Day but was postponed until October 20 due to the project’s failure to meet the requirements of Massachusetts’ “Dig Safe” law in time.
The Dig Safe law requires electric companies, gas companies and cable companies to inspect excavation areas for wires and pipes at least 72 hours before any digging.
The project leaders realized the day before Non Sibi Day that they had forgotten to secure such approval, according to Marc Koolen, member of the Campus Beautification Committee and Instructor in Biology, who organized the project.
“Because the students who had initially signed up to plant bulbs for Non Sibi Day were reassigned to other projects, we were forced to ask for volunteers this weekend. But thankfully, we had 14 people helping out, both students and faculty,” said Koolen.
“We also had about six faculty children [helping out]… they definitely had a ball. It was great to see the community come together,” he said.
The scilla bulb planting project began five years ago. Locations for the project have varied from year to year and have included the Great Lawn, the grass outside the mailroom of George Washington Hall, the hill by the Chapel Cemetary and the space around the Memorial Bell Tower, according to Koolen.
“We try to select areas that are visible and won’t get walked over a lot, [and plant flowers] just to give the campus a little blue for the spring,” said Koolen.
Of the 2,000 bulbs planted around the Bell Tower two years ago, only about 200 sprouted because many of them were unable to escape the tightly woven roots of the grass surrounding the bulbs.
To avoid this problem, organizers decided to try a new planting technique this year.
In the new technique, volunteers dropped bulbs in three-inch deep holes in the ground made with sharpened pipes, giving the bulbs a more direct path to the top of the soil. However, volunteers had trouble pushing pipes into the ground, as rain earlier in the week had caused the dirt to become dense.
Because of the inefficiency of the new method, Koolen had volunteers revert back to the old planting method after 20 minutes, which consisted of digging a larger hole with a shovel and placing six bulbs in each hole.
The original method’s drawback becomes apparent when the bulbs sprout, as the flowers end up growing in clumps rather than uniform rows, according to Koolen.
The Campus Beautification Committee, led by Thayer Zaeder, Instructor in Art, includes Tom Cone, Instructor in Biology, Leislie Godo-Solo, Associate Director of the Institute for Recruitment of Teachers, Caroline Odden, Instructor in Physics, David Stern, Instructor in Chemistry, Paul Tortorella, Instructor in English, and Koolen.
