The Jones Center's got some new additions this summer. Ozarks at Large’s Jack Travis takes us to Springdale to explore the center's new volunteer-driven rain garden, plus a nostalgic snack at Pearlsnap Picnic.
"No, I haven't been out here for a couple of weeks, and so I haven't seen the growth. And the plants are looking pretty good. I don't see anything that's dried up or dead, so that's really good news."
That's Andi Jones, membership and volunteer coordinator at the Jones Center in Springdale. She's on the campus in the courtyard of the Jones Community for Nonprofits, looking at small sprouts. This is the recently installed rain garden. And Jones says volunteers and organizations like the Illinois River Watershed Partnership have been working hard to get these little plants into the ground.
"Eight different schools from the area, FFA students, came and they seem to have a lot of fun. It was a hot day, but we were ready for them, and I think they learned a lot about the different plants. So there were 46 students the first time, they planted about 1,000 plants. Then there was another shipment two weeks later that came in, another 1,000 plants. And the Hispanic Women's Organization supported us that time and brought 22 people, mostly students again, to help. And I think they had a lot of fun too. And that second time we had 11 staff from the Jones Center who also helped plant. And we had fun interacting with the students and getting dirty, and just really making an impact where we can see it. And I think that's what's really cool about this."
Jones says she's learning a lot about gardening, too. Like what qualifies as a weed. With so many native plants, it can get confusing, and you don't want to remove the natives, as they're key to a rain garden's success. So Jones created a system.
"You don't pull something unless you know what it is. It might look like a weed, but we're going to let it grow. So that's something that I hadn't really thought of before. I was always pulling weeds out. But yeah, I've learned that. But what has really warmed my heart is the collaboration of the different organizations, the schools, the students, that people are excited about this. It's just a little corner of the community, but it's cool to see that so many people care. And the Jones Center is all about community and building that, and so we're building it in a different way, in a really cool way."
And a way that might cool the campus by mitigating the urban heat island effect. There's plenty of concrete and asphalt around the center, and with these new deep-rooted native gardens, they will lower ambient temperatures through evaporation, shading and restoring natural water cycles.
"This used to be a big mound of dirt and mulch, and that was a problem because all the water just ran right off of it, so we had to have some help. Milestone Construction came in and dug it out for us. And then Illinois River Watershed laid down the good soil, and then figured out where all these plants go. All 2,000 plants."
Morgan Keeling is the associate director of the Illinois River Watershed Partnership. They provided the project design and installation leadership. She says there are several reasons the Jones Center is a prime candidate for a rain garden.
"One is in these urban environments where it's a lot of pavement around, we need every opportunity we can to infiltrate stormwater. And so what we say is, any way that you can soak in, spread out or store that stormwater in the ground, rather than moving it downstream, is beneficial to water quality. So you're essentially trying to increase the interaction of water with plants, which drops out sediment. Our biggest pollutant in the Illinois River watershed is not something that comes to top of mind. It's not pet waste. It's not oil in our water. It is sediment."
Stormwater gathers sediment at the Jones Center and flows into Spring Creek, a tributary of the Illinois River. Keeling says native plants are great at breaking up the soil and holding sediment, so by using native landscaping, such as a rain garden, you can improve the water quality of surrounding streams and creeks.
"And rain gardens are just one sort of category of what is basically a bioswale, a bioretention facility. And a bioretention facility is just the use of vegetation to help support water quality, whether that be dropping sediments out or using something like phytoremediation to remediate the soils of more intensive, heavy pollutants, like heavy metals or arsenic, or something like that that might exist in the soil. So we're really good at engineering our landscapes, which makes our stormwater move faster than it would in a normal environment. And so what we're really trying to promote is something called low-impact development. And that is where you think about this network value, rather than thinking about a new development needing just a single detention or retention facility to manage stormwater. What we really want the mentality to be is we need a lot of facilities that start from the moment that the stormwater drops on an impervious area, like a rooftop or a road or a sidewalk, all the way to when it hits that receiving channel of the stream."
You can help grow this garden. Morgan Keeling and Andi Jones say the Jones Center is currently seeking volunteers year-round for grounds and rain garden maintenance. Plus help with summer camps and special events like the Pickleooza Pickleball tournament in August and a regionwide day of service in September that aims to mobilize about 250 volunteers across Northwest Arkansas would be appreciated. Additionally, this fall, the Illinois River Watershed Partnership will also host a hands-on rain garden work day and native plants workshop at the Jones Center. Details and signups are available through the Jones Center's volunteer page.
And while you're there, the Jones Center has a new place to refresh after digging around in the soil or running on a treadmill. Pearlsnap Picnic opened last week right at the west entrance. Owner Leo Orpin says the space they're operating in has been empty for at least five years.
"There's been nothing there. And I was one of the many patrons that would come by after working out or after a meeting, or any of the multiple reasons I'd be in the Jones Center daily, thinking somebody needs to do something there. And eventually we became that somebody. So we opened Pearlsnap Picnic today. It is a coffee, smoothie and kind of quick bites. "
The name, decorations and overall vibe are nostalgic. Orpin says that pearl snap shirts have personal significance to him.
"My father was, he almost would probably refute this, but he was more of a lumberjack, where we were just constantly out cutting wood for heat for the winter. And so that was a chore of mine as a kid. But you'd always grab a flannel pearl snap that was just there, there would be like eight of them hanging on the wall like a jacket. So we wanted to kind of be approachable for that. And then you tie it into the surreal picnic, which is everybody knows what a picnic is, but how often do you see anybody do a picnic? Like actually take time out of their day to be like, I'm going to stop my nine to five, and I'm just going to throw a blanket out in the yard and just picnic."
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
