UNL’s Cather Garden is being redesigned to align with the campus master plan and an upcoming renovation in Love Library North.
When finished, the garden — named in honor of Nebraska author Willa Cather — will continue to feature a prairie landscape made popular in Cather’s books. The space will also be more visible along sidewalks to the north and south.
“Cather Garden will be more of a manicured native garden with planting beds that are a little more controlled,” said Eileen Bergt, assistant director of Landscape Services. “Those planting beds will include a variety of native plants and grasses.”
The redesign has started with a reshaping of the garden’s south quadrant. Bergt said the berm immediately north of the College of Business Administration was lowered in July.
“Lowering the berm really has opened up the space — which was a suggestion made in the master plan,” Bergt said. “Another major change in the redesign is the replacing buffalo grass in the space with fescue.”
The switch to a common grass will allow the Cather Garden space to blend in more with spaces around Love Library North — including Donaldson Garden to the east. Bergt said the blending of grass is important as parts of the area around Love Library North will be transformed into an outdoor plaza that links to a Learning Commons that is planned for the first floor of the library.
“The Learning Commons plaza will extend into the two gardens on the east and west sides of Love Library North,” said Emily Casper, landscape architect with Facilities Planning and Construction.
Casper said the final plaza design is still in development. The other three quadrants of the Cather Garden will not be updated until the Learning Commons project and plaza are completed.
Bergt said Landscape Services would begin installing new plants in the garden’s north quadrant within the next two to three weeks. Workers have started to prepare the soil for grass seeding.
The Cather Garden was established in the mid 1970s with the help of a donation in memory of Johanna Abolins and a grant from the Lincoln Garden Club. Prior to being used as a garden, the space was a parking lot. Today, it is one of 14 designated gardens on UNL’s City and East campuses.
For more information on UNL’s gardens, go to http://www.unl.edu/bga.
