What strike me, and everyone else, the first time I saw the campus is how green it was !

 

Basically, the Whitworth campus looks like a huge park with some building dispersed around it.

So, you can see grass everywhere with just some little pedestrian sidewalk to reach all those building with your foot clean and dry (even in flip-flops).

The question that then immediately crossed my mind was HOW?

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I arrived at the end of a long sunny summer and the garden at home was just burn down. However, here at Whitworth some kind of miracle had preserved the nature on the campus. The next morning, I soon had my answer when I ended up lost in the middle of maze made of moving sprinklers. Basically, at any time of the day, you can always find a sprinkler working on campus.

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Another huge characteristic of the

outdoor of the campus is that it’s full

of pine trees.

It is a common tree in Washington

state and it looks really good.

One good point with pine trees is that

they attract squirrels. So, every day,

on your way to breakfast, classes or

just home you can see either a squirrel

crossing your way or eating anything

they found in the grass. Another great

thing with those trees is that they

don’t have branches on the lower part

of the trunk, so people can easily put

hammocks on the chill for some time.

Another story from Whitworth, until      

some 3 years ago there were a lot        

more trees (pine trees obviously) on      

campus, some parts actually looked     

like some king of forest. The problem    

is that 3 years ago during a storm,       

one tree fell… Due to the proximity       

of all the other trees some other           

fell too and the campus ended up         

like a mess. Moreover, some of those    

trees being close to dorms, some of      

them (including Ballard, my dorm),       

lost power for some days, forcing         

their inhabitants to move to some         

other dorms for some days. This chaotic

situation didn’t last long but still,           

people decided to lighten the number of trees on campus to avoid those kinds of problem. And now, every tree is cared for with even more care than before. For example, there’s no grass around the tree, they put tree chips around it, so the roots can get all the water from this area and also so that it’s easier to dig the grass, which they also constantly do.

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Last but not least, all along the principal side walk going to the HUB. They have some giant flower pot full of colorful geranium. There are at least 20 of them and all are more than one square meters wide on 70 cm deep. They look stunning and no one knows how they manage to grow them so big. I feel like those flowers summarize perfectly the care Whitworth give to all the outdoors to make this campus, the more welcoming place possible.