College of Charleston
OP-9: Landscape Management

Land excluded from the area of managed grounds reported above includes satellite campus land associated with our North Campus in North Charleston, the Grice Marine Laboratory in James Island, Harborwalk (home to Computer Sciences) on the Charleston Harbor and administrative buildings located on Lockwood Boulevard on the Charleston peninsula. The total managed land, 56 acres, includes landscaping, building footprint, and sidewalks from main campus, Patriots Point athletic complex, and managed land at Stono Preserve.

Open green areas such as the iconic Cistern Yard, Rivers Green and the SSMB courtyard are managed without pesticides. This totals to about 2 acres.

Students and staff who work to cultivate and manage the Student Garden at Stono Preserve (about 2 acres) use a style known as market gardening. All techniques are organic and conducted with the help of large-scale agriculture equipment. Additionally, organic supplements used to maintain the grounds on our Main Campus include: 9-0-0 corn gluten, limestone, milorganite, gypsum, sulfur, fish and seaweed.

In collaboration with the Lowcountry Land Trust, the College of Charleston is embarking on a strategic, comprehensive plan to restore Stono Preserve to its original purpose as a "conservationist's classroom." Native, diverse ecosystems will be restored and maintained to provide experiential learning for College students and faculty, and with the “light on the land,” minimalist support facilities in place, Stono Preserve will become an urban refuge for those interested in and appreciative of the natural world around us.

Additionally, in Fall 2021 the College signed on as a Tree Campus USA, committing to caring for our campus tree in a formal way.

The College of Charleston main campus has several rainwater harvesting projects.

There is a 1,000-gallon cistern installed at the Political Science building. The rainwater collected at this cistern is used to maintain an urban garden that is used by the Sustainable Agriculture Program and to wash equipment as needed. The Sustainable Agriculture Program also has a 500 gallon rainwater catchment system to irrigate their pollination garden and help support their newly installed raingarden. The largest garden plot at CofC also has two large rain barrels set up for irrigation of produce and they do a yearly workshop on how to build and manage rainbarrels.

The Grounds department has two additional rain barrels on their building. This rainwater is used to help propagate seedlings and other new plants. The fourth and fifth rainwater harvesting projects are located at the Communications and Historic Preservation buildings. Each of these buildings has a small rain barrel used to maintain landscaping.

The College's Grounds department collects and diverts all yard waste on campus. The collected yard waste is picked up by Charleston County and taken to the Bees Ferry composting facility. Bees Ferry processes 100 percent of the yard waste accepted at the facility and generates compost, which is available for purchase by Charleston farmers and residents.

The College actively uses shade trees to aid in the reduction of the heat island effect. Three projects highlight this use: Rivers Green, an outdoor space directly adjacent to Addlestone Library; the new School of Science and Math building; and, a new dining location called Marty's Place. All projects have strategically incorporated shade trees in landscaping plans to help keep these key campus locations cooler.

The College uses organic supplements throughout the Main Campus. These supplements include: corn gluten, limestone, chicken manure and seaweed fertilizers. In addition, all of the College's landscaping beds are evaluated on a case-by-case basis and action plans are adopted for each unique bed.