Walking the Pitzer College Campus, part one...

This place, Pitzer College, is why I happened to end up in SoCal the week of January 16th. Andrew had business planned in nearby Covina, when he mentioned the trip my brain thought..."Why not tag along? When else are you ever gonna have the chance to visit an obscure college campus some 20+ miles east of the Los Angeles County Arboretum" (which I'd visited in 2014)...and so it happened.

How did I know about Pitzer? I'd read a story in Pacific Horticulture, back in 2010, and then Gerhard visited on New Years Day in 2016. Of course as usual Denise had been there too, cause she's is in the know about all the cool places and things in SoCal.

After stashing the car I made my way around the parking lot.

Thinking the whole time "I'm drooling over plants in a parking lot!"...

But it was so good!

In case you aren't familiar with Pitzer: Founded in 1963, Pitzer College is a top-ranked liberal arts and sciences college. The College emphasizes environmental and interdisciplinary studies, the arts, humanities and social, behavioral and natural sciences. With approximately 1,000 students, Pitzer College is part of The Claremont Colleges – a unique consortium of five undergraduate colleges and two graduate institutions. (taken from their website)

And the reason the grounds look like they were lifted right from the Huntington Botanical Garden? A man named Joe Clements. He managed the Desert Garden at the Huntington for 25 years, before becoming the Arboretum and Grounds Manager at Pitzer.

Nan Sterman, the author of the Pacific Horticulture article, toured around campus with Joe himself, it's a good read if you want to learn more about how the beautiful campus came to be. Since I took hundreds of photos, and I want to share as many as possible with you, I'm going to try to keep my commentary to a minimum. This is a long post, and there's another one on the way tomorrow!

The outward tilt at the top of these Agave parryi leaves was interesting, uncommon to my eyes.

Remember we're still just walking the big parking lot as you enter campus. I haven't even gotten into the "meat" of the campus yet!

Hmmm...

The challenges of gardening with spikes under long needled conifers.

Stressed a little? But beautiful!

With this image I'm actually entering the campus proper, and things are going to get even more interesting!

This Cyphostemma juttae is one of the few plants identified by name on campus, the red print reads "Grapes are not to be eaten"...cause they're poisonous.

Remember this picture, we'll refer back to it in a bit.

Those snowy mountains in the distance reminded me of what I'd left behind in Portland just 24-hrs earlier.

Glow-sticks!

It's all so impeccably maintained — I saw four carts full of workers zooming around and spiffing things up as I strolled the grounds.

It's obvious the students are encouraged to put their mark on the surrounding buildings. Looking at Denise's 2015 post and Gerhard's from 2016 it appears some of the paintings / murals / graffiti stays the same and others continually evolve.

This black board is maybe 250ft from that sign saying the Cyphostemma juttae grapes are not to be eaten. Makes you wonder...


Moving right along...

BTW, I'm intentionally not throwing out names, even though I know a few and could make educated guesses on others. Gerhard did a great job of naming names in his posts (here and here).

Okay, did you get an eyeful? Come back tomorrow for more!

Weather Diary, February 8: Hi 37, Low 35/ Precip 1.01"

All material © 2009-2017 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.