Skip to main content

Grounds

Grounds

The Grounds department mission is to provide safe and aesthetically pleasing outdoor environments where students and staff can enjoy God’s gift of nature.

Our grounds team is a group of professionals who provides a full range of landscape maintenance and installation services including mowing, tree maintenance, turf maintenance, soil conservation, and snow removal. Our Grounds teams work to ensure the campus grounds are properly serviced and provide a pleasant environment to keep and support the best and brightest students, faculty, and staff members.

 

BrightView Landscapes Enhancement Project 2024   

BrightView Landscapes who is a landscaping contrator for Norfolk State University complted a welcomed campus Enhancement Project. Along Park Avenue and Brambleton Avenue, BrightView Landscapes installed a combination of fescue sod and mondo grass, Ophiopogon japonicus, and expanded the existing irrigation system to accomidted the new plants. The Fescue sod is better suited to living in the shade of the large oak trees throughout this area in combination with proper irrigation. Mondo grass was chosen for areas with less sun, where the grass will not thrive. This groundcover plant is quite tolerant to foot traffic and the harsh growing conditions in this area, along with the shade.

Upgrades were also made to the McDemmond Center Marquis Bed, Wilson Hall Foundation planting and at the Wilder Center. For these installations, BrightView Landscapes used a combination of native and non-native shrubs and ground cover including Encore Azaleas, Panicum Hydrangea, Hollies, and Variegated Liriope.

landscape improvement project landscape improvement project

landscape improvement project

landscape improvement project

Enhancement Project 2024

  • Pollinator Meadow and Student Planting – In November 2023, NSU in partnership with Elizabeth River Project (ERP) and BrightView established 3,300 sf of pollinator meadow and conservation landscaping between the Student Center and Gill Gym. ERP designed the project, NSU prepped the site while revitalizing the stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) on campus. The project includes a 3,000 sf (200’ x 15’) native planting strip adjacent to a linear BMP west of a high-profile "bridge" that was planted by BrightView. Then, a 300 sf area on either side of the “bridge” was planted by Biology students on November 1. More than 3,340 native plants totaling .075 acres) were added including Eastern Star Sedge (Carex radiata), Prairie Dropseed (Sporobolis heterolepsis), White Cloud Muhly Grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris 'White Cloud'), Swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), Snow Flurry heath aster (Aster ericoides 'Snow Flurry'), Black Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida), Threadleaf Tickseed (Coreopsis verticillata), Golden star/Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginiana), Willow-leaved sunflower(Helianthus salicifolius), White Crested Dwarf Iris (Iris cristata), Goldenrod ‘Fireworks’ (Solidago rugosa 'Fireworks'), Golden Groundsel (Packera aurea), Penstemon, White (Penstemon digitalis), Phlox, White Creeping (Phlox subulata), Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), Yellow wild indigo (Baptesia tinctoria), Culver's Root (Veronicastrum virginicum), Virginia Mountain Mint (Pycnathimum virginicum), Thread-leaf bluestar (Amsonia Hubrishi), Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), Harvest Moon Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), Winter Berry (Ilex Verticilatta), River Birch (Betula Nigra), and Sweet Bay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana).

    landscape improvement project
  • Earth Day at NSU April 22 2024 - Brightview Landscape services, faculty staff, and Elizabeth River partnered in an Earth Day planting on April, 2023 for students. Elizabeth River Project provided 224 native flowers, grasses and shrubs including Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida), Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum), Threadleaf coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata), Seaside goldenrod (Solidago sempervirens), Prair Leaf Dropseed (Sporobolis heterolepsis), St. John’s Wort ('Sunburst' H. frondosum), Culver’s root (Veronicastrum virginicum), Foxglove Beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis), Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea), Fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus), and Robin’s plaintain (Erigeron pulchellus).

    landscape improvement project