Groundskeeper adds tranquility to Tempe campus

December 05, 2007

One of the busiest corners of the Tempe campus has been transformed into an oasis of tranquility.<separator></separator>Near the Durham Language and Literature Building, what once was a struggling juniper garden now is a Japanese garden, complete with a “deer chaser” fountain, bamboo, lantern and rock formations.<separator></separator>The garden was designed and installed by groundskeeper Zoltan Trest, who came to ASU a year ago from the Phoenix Zoo.<separator></separator>Trest, a native of Hungary, says he didn’t know much about Japanese gardens, so he set out to do research before the project began.<separator></separator>“I went to the library and looked on the Internet,” he says. “I found books on Japanese gardens. I even learned that there’s a Japanese garden society here. I had seen a few others, and I went to visit the Japanese garden in downtown Phoenix.”<separator></separator>Replicating a Japanese garden on a university campus in the desert provided a few challenges for Trest, such as finding appropriate plants that would survive the hot summer, including a tree with maroon leaves that would be a desert substitute for the Japanese maple tree, and locating rock that wouldn’t reflect too much light.<separator></separator>Most of the components in the garden are recycled, according to Trest and Ellen Newell, grounds assistant director at ASU.<separator></separator>The moving spout of the deer chaser fountain appears to be bamboo at first glance, but it’s really a section of plastic pipe that Trest painted to resemble bamboo. Some of the garden’s borders are made with sections of poles used to support immature trees.<separator></separator>The granite boulders were rescued from Mariposa Hall when it was torn down. The compost is from wood chippings from the Tempe campus, obtained through a new arrangement with Ken Singh’s Farm in Scottsdale.<separator></separator>“We send them our green waste, averaging more than 12 tons per month, then we purchase compost at a price per cubic yard that varies between the different types,” Newell says. “It is a very beneficial relationship for us and is a big part of our sustainability efforts.”<separator></separator>The bowl into which the recirculated water is dumped from the “bamboo” pipe is an old planter bowl that Trest covered with rocks.<separator></separator>ASU’s small Japanese garden includes a desert version of the abstract sand-and-stone gardens usually found at Zen monasteries, in which stones rise from raked sand. Here, instead of sand, Trest uses gravel, which Trest transforms into soothing designs with a special rake he designed for the task.<separator></separator>Soon, passers-by will be able to make designs in the raised sand-and-stone garden themselves. A copy of the large-toothed wood rake, made by carpenter John Breese, will be chained to the planter so that anyone who wishes can create a pattern.<separator></separator>Some ASU students already have left their mark on the larger sand-and-stone garden, Trest says.<separator></separator>“Someone made snow angels in the garden,” Trest said with a bit of chagrin.<separator></separator>Though it’s tiny, the Japanese garden, with its mondo grass, topiaries, Korean grass and maple tree, already has a number of fans on the Tempe campus.<separator></separator>Callie Babbit, who works in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, stopped to thank Trest for his work.<separator></separator>“This is my favorite part of campus,” she says.

University