Children’s garden, new Auburn University Bee Center approved
Two transformational projects for the Auburn University College of Agriculture were approved by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on Friday, Feb. 7.
First, the board approved phase one of a new children’s garden at the 16-acre Transformation Garden.
“The Transformation Garden’s first major construction project is designed to provide transformative learning experiences for children and their families,” said Desmond Layne, head of the Department of Horticulture. “Located at the southern entrance to the garden near the Jay and Susie Gogue Performing Arts Center, guests will enter this space designed with kids in mind. Our faculty, staff and students will help to educate, engage and entertain youth with fun, safe and educational content and spaces that will create a lifelong love for plants and foster curiosity.”
The children’s garden will cover approximately 1.5 acres and include a central gathering lawn, seating areas, extensive plantings and natural play structures within the Transformation Garden’s hands-on field laboratory environment. The estimated total project cost of the project is $2.2 million, which will be financed by the College of Agriculture and gift funds.
Currently, the Transformation Garden also includes two vertical farms — shipping containers outfitted as hydroponic farms — and the Old Rotation, the oldest continuous cotton experiment in the world. Once complete, it will also include a shaded classroom, a greenhouse and aquaponic project, a teaching orchard, a landscape construction work yard, agronomic field crops, a shade garden, a vegetable teaching garden, a pollinator garden, a medicinal garden, an invasive plants garden, rain garden and more.
The board also approved the establishment of the Auburn University Bee Center, which will combine research, extension and education to advance innovative solutions for bee conservation. Supporting the AU-Bees program, the center will advance the university’s role as a leader in bee research, cultivate future leaders through impactful research and extension, and increase collaborations among the colleges and the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.
“Creation of the Bee Center recognizes the important contributions Auburn University and Alabama Extension have made towards understanding and improving bee health and beekeeping in recent years,” said Geoffrey Williams, associate professor and director of the AU-Bees program. “It positions us to move forward more effectively as a regional and national leader by streamlining faculty and resources dedicated to bees.”
The core members of the Bee Center will be faculty whose lab missions are dedicated to bees. This includes Williams (honeybee research and teaching), Assistant Extension Professor Selina Bruckner (honeybee extension and research), and Assistant Research Professor Anthony Abbate (native bee research), plus affiliate faculty from the USDA ARS Pollinator Health Research Unit in Stoneville, Mississippi.
Additional key members are Auburn faculty making important contributions to bee research, including Assistant Professor Stephanie Rogers from the College of Sciences & Mathematics and Dr. Laura Huber from the College of Veterinary Medicine, as well as Regional Extension Agents Jack Rowe and Allyson Shantel stationed at Auburn University and Alabama A&M University, respectively.
Layne and Williams reiterated that the Transformation Garden and the new Bee Center are projects that will strengthen and enhance the college’s research, instruction and outreach efforts, targeting its three missions as a land-grant institution.
