Whats Happening in Schaumburg

Landscape Redevelopment

 

The Future of Schaumburg

Below is a list of native plants to be used in the Schaumburg Landscape Redevelopment.

On behalf of Campus Planning and Operations, below is a brief update on Schaumburg’s landscape conversion:

• May will be a transformational month for the Schaumburg Campus landscape.  Per the Sustainable Site campus landscape plan that was created, low-input native plantings will replace a lot of the high-input, resource-intensive turf grass areas.

• Over the next few weeks, visitors to our campus will begin to see much of the turf grass in open areas and on the parking lot islands turning brown because 8 of the 13 acres of turf grass were treated with a contact herbicide that kills the grass.

• In mid to late May, the open areas will be seeded with native prairie mixes.  The parking lot islands will be planted with native grasses using seed, plugs or plants.  A few native flower beds will also be installed on the west parking lot islands.  (Native seedings take three years to fully establish as they build their root systems for the first few years before displaying their characteristic top growth.)

• This year, we will see primarily cover grasses and a few showy natives late in the season.  More native plants will be evident in the second summer, and by the third year the seeded areas should start to look like a healthy native plant community.

• As the new seedings and plants are getting established, see if you can identify our new native plants as they begin to emerge.

• Lastly, please use care to avoid walking over the newly planted native areas.  Thank you!

Winter Projects

Environmentally Friendly Ice Melt

We're testing a new beet juice based ice melt that is friendlier to our environment and the concrete at the Schaumburg campus. The beet juice mixture is also more effective at lower temperatures than just plain old salt.