Attendees of the Earth Day Celebration outside of Cunz Hall work on their planting projects on Wednesday. Credit: Jason Craig | Lantern Reporter
On Wednesday for Earth Day, members of the Ohio State community came together outside of Cunz Hall to celebrate plants, togetherness and the environment.?
Outside the hall’s front doors, a large table was set with a variety of plants. Event attendees could walk up to the table to either choose a pre-cut clipping from a plant or sever a piece themselves.
Propagation, or creating new plants from existing ones through plant cuttings, was the main way to share the plants around the event.
Many attendees arrived with their own plants and pots to re-pot their plants in an environment crafted to do so.?
Plant propagators included members from Ohio State staff, faculty and student communities.?
Hands dug into open bags of soil while people passed tools back and forth to each other, and excited praise rang out whenever someone finished potting their plant cutting.??
“Now that the weather has gotten kind of consistently warm at least, I’ve had my eyes on getting? a new plant,” Ava Stofel, a first-year in exploration, said. “This event was nice because I didn’t even need to bring my own pot, but I walked away with a potted plant!”?
Shanessa Rees, currently earning her masters in business administration and is part of the College of Public Health’s Wellness Committee, helped organize and run the event. She said that this year’s planting event was the first since the COVID-19 pandemic.?
“It was a historical event in the past that had gone away for a couple of years,” Rees said. “[The College of Public Health] just formed a wellness committee this year as part of the campus-wide wellness initiative. We thought it was a perfect idea to bring this event back for Earth Day.”
Rees said the event is inspired by an Earth Day initiative to bring people together outdoors.?
“We initially opened it to faculty and staff, but of course we have opened it to students now as well, to help foster and build relationships,” Rees said.
While plants were being cut and swapped downstairs, a new garden was being planted on the roof of the building.?
Milo Fox stood over the in-progress roof garden on Cunz Hall, put together by the Ohio State community.
Fox, a facilities operations specialist with the College of Public Health, said plants chosen for the rooftop garden had to be selected carefully, because the soil is only about six inches deep. One of the plants chosen was creeping thyme.?
“This is actually my first foray into gardening, like, ever,” Fox said. “It’s a fun thing to do for Earth Day.”
