We broke ground! 1000 times over!
This past Saturday the BUDS lab spent the day at Morven Sustainability Lab in the fence for Meghan's common garden getting put in soon! February is proving to be prime planting weather in Virginia (mid-50s)!
We were out all day with varying digging mechanisms (drill, dibble bar, trowel for the unlock folks). There was a lot of core work, lots of wiggling to get these dibble bars in the ground, and lots of fun.
The fence is going to be home to 1000 red oaks, part of a larger common garden experiment with sister gardens at the University of Maine and at Harvard. This research aims to understand the degree to which rapidly changing environemnts are altering forest trajectories and how genetic variation in resilience can be harnessed to bolster forest adaptation to climate, using red oaks as a study subject.
The holes are sitting vacant at the moment, but will be all filled up within the next week or so (with so many red oaks)! Stay tuned!