When the Lawn is puddlewonderful
Enter Charlottesville's rainy season.
While rain may mean down and dirty games of football on the Lawn or mudsliding in the Mad Bowl, for those who maintain the University Grounds, rainy days mean more work than play.
Jeff Ertle fights a constant battle to keep the University, especially the Lawn area, looking good.
"Our goal is to try to keep the Lawn green," said Ertle, who is superintendent of the landscaping division of Facilities Management.
But because of pedestrian traffic and poor drainage systems, for the Lawn, it's not always easy being green.
To maintain the grass for special events such as Fall Convocation and Final Exercises, Ertle and his staff re-seed the Lawn at least twice a year, usually in the fall and spring. After seeding, they install barriers to try to keep people from trampling the grasslings.
Despite the barriers, however, people inevitably make their way onto the Lawn, especially over the weekends. Ertle said he and his staff spent five hours on Sunday trying to reinstall the rope fences that people had removed.
"People seem to go where they want to go," he said.
Rain and mud only exacerbate the problem. When students play football on the grass, they end up grinding the grass into mud, he added.
"We try to discourage people from playing in the mud," Ertle said, explaining that playing in the mud turns the grass into straw. The combination of mud and straw creates a concrete-like substance where the ground cannot absorb water.
"Adobe houses in the Southwest were made out of the same mixture -- mud and straw. The resulting combination is like concrete," he said.
To keep the Lawn from becoming a perpetual brown pancake, Ertle and his staff aerate the Lawn each fall to loosen up the soil so the ground can absorb rainwater.
But even with all of these efforts, the Lawn often still resembles a large puddle after a heavy rain. Ertle attributes this to the lack of a drainage system.
"When Thomas Jefferson designed the Lawn, he didn't think of drainage," he said. Ertle says that because the Lawn is flat, there is no place for excess water to go.
Ertle realizes that even though the goal of keeping the Lawn green is a tough one to reach, he is not surprised that an area so heavily used requires constant maintenance, even in the rain.
Compiled by Christa Dierksheide.
Odds ideas? Call Ryann at 924-1092.
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