By Noah Pond
Imagine being on your hands and knees all day, planting wild strawberries during the unpredictable Humboldt winter. It’s one of those days where the torrential downpour feels neverending, but at least you’re suited up in full rain gear so you’re dry. Until you reach in your pocket to find your phone had been bathing in a pocket puddle all day.
This is a familiar situation for Cal Poly Humboldt’s Gardening Specialist Larry Nichols. Gardening has always been a hobby of his and it has kept him on campus for ten years.
“Ever since I was a little kid, yard work was my favorite chore around the house,” Nichols said. “I’ve been here on campus for about ten years and before that, I had a local landscaping business for about 15 years.”
Nichols is one of four gardening specialists here at Cal Poly Humboldt. They have the 144 acres of campus divided up into sections that they are in charge of taking care of.
“I think I have the coolest area,” Nichols said. “I’m responsible for all of Founders and Van Matre Hall, and all through the sciences and a whole bunch of athletics. I have a super cool mix of some of the oldest, original landscapes on campus. I have the oldest rhododendrons on campus and I have some forest in my area, and some of the newest landscape that’s been redesigned and reinstalled in the last 10 years. So, I have this huge spectrum of things to concern.”
Being in Humboldt, the weather is unpredictable from season to season, and this winter hasn’t been any different.
“This year has been a super wet winter, and there’s stuff we just can’t do — and it’s not because we’re afraid of getting wet, but you can’t mow a lawn while there’s water standing on it,” Nichols said. “There are some lawns we haven’t been able to mow for a couple of months.”
In recent years, the grounds team has been trying to move away from lawns being the norm and move more towards native plants, plants for pollinators, and climate-adaptive areas in their place. Although a little bit more labor intensive with all the hand weeding and such, the carbon footprint will be vastly improved due to the lack of power tools and synthetic chemicals.
Being a gardening specialist is not easy work, but what it comes down to for Larry Nichols is appreciation. He appreciates, cares, and loves this campus, so when people stop and take time out of their day to appreciate the work he is doing, it makes it all worth it.
“People all the time, visitors, students and staff – they notice what we do and they compliment us on it, especially this time of year when the flowers are starting to happen and the magnolias and rhododendrons are looking really great,” Nichols said. “Multiple times a day people will stop me and say, ‘It looks so beautiful around here, thank you.’”
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