Gateway Gardens

Since 2013, Gateway Gardens has grown into a local "biodiversity hotspot." Our immersive native plant exhibits highlight California's diverse flora and habitats, demonstrate drought-tolerant systems in one of the warmest spots on campus, provide resources for local wildlife, and serve as a study-ground for university and high school student researchers. Our newly remodeled Edible Garden showcases small-scale food-growing strategies. Discover nearly 200 species thriving in Gateway Gardens, a gem and refuge in the community!

Part of what makes Chico so ecologically special is our proximity to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and the diverse habitats they provide. This exhibit, established in 2018 and designed by Split Rock Studios, highlights major habitats of the local environments in our own backyard. Begin your journey in the savannah grassland and move across the exhibit to experience the globally unique chaparral, an aquatic riparian refuge, and a rapidly-growing small-scale woodland. Learn about the specialized ecology of these habitats, the plants that they support, and their role in our regional environment.

The exhibit is made possible by a generous gift from the estate of Glenn E. and Ruth Gray Cunningham.

The Native Plant Pollinator Garden, designed and constructed in 2013 in collaboration with Chico State Associated Students Sustainability interns and the Mt. Lassen Chapter of the California Native Plant Society in Chico, is home to more than 40 plants native to California. These plants were chosen to provide year-round food and cover resources to the widest diversity of native pollinators possible. The plants here provide pollen, nectar and larval foliage to bees, flies, butterflies, moths, beetles and birds. At any given time throughout the year, find at least 3-5 plant species in bloom!

Gateway’s "Native Plant Pollinator Garden" was designed by Adrienne Edwards and Paula Shapiro. Site design and project construction overseen by John Whittlesey and funding was made possible by Chico State Associated Students Sustainability.

The Edible Garden at Gateway has received a major makeover! In 2023, Chico State's California Climate Corps and California College Corps fellows funded and aided in constructing new raised beds in the long-disused space behind the museum. These beds, built from easily-acquired materials, showcase different construction styles and heights that accommodate gardeners with wheelchairs or mobility limitations. In 2024, the Chico State student chapter of the Association of General Contractors designed and built an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant pathway, allowing us to reopen the exhibit to visitors.

The Edible Garden also features a rotating compost system. The system turns green waste and food scraps contributed by Gateway's staff into healthy new soil.

This space is now host to thriving, fast-growing young fruits, vegetables, and herbs that provide a demonstration of organic produce production on a small-scale. When the garden's yield and capabilities expand, we endeavor to be one of the many contributors to Chico State's Hungry Wildcat Food Pantry.

Thank you to Hodges Nursery for the Fall 2024 donation of three fruit trees!

California is one of the most biodiverse regions of the world, and is home to approximately 1600 native bee species. With its high floral biodiversity, Gateway Gardens is a great place to observe many of these. One of the latest additions to the garden is Bee City, a community of native bee nesting structures designed, built, and monitored by Chico State graduate, Douglas Armour.

Douglas's experiments with native bee nest boxes began at the Chico State Farm, but Gateway Gardens provides year-round native flowers from which bees can forage. Bee City expanded to Gateway in the summer of 2023, and continues to evolve with new styles of nest boxes, new species hosted, and a native meadow providing cover for ground-nesting bees.

These nest boxes are primarily home to solitary bee species, such as mason and leafcutter bees, which build singular cocoons for their offspring inside the many holes provided. Look closely and you'll see small colored sticks in some of these holes, which helps the bees to navigate and map the location of their own cocoons.

The California Delta is the large fan-shaped plain of estuaries and sediment deposited from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers where these rivers meet the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Plants in the Delta Region of Gateway’s gardens, located on the southern side of the museum, include wetland-adapted plants that might be found in the rich delta environment. An elegant native sycamore tree, coast live oak, California hibiscus (shown here), elderberry, sedges, grasses, and shrubs thrive here.

Find some of our newest plantings here as we celebrate growth in the Lower Montane! The lower elevation forests of Northern California and the headwaters of the Sacramento River are depicted in this eco-region, located along the museum's northwestern boundary. A mixture of trees such as Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and incense cedar populates this region along with unique ancient shrub species, evergreen foliage, and distinct understory flora.

The "Paleo Plaza," located left of the museum entrance, is a peek into the distant past when water-loving plants were declining as oceans subsided and land plants, including the flowering and seed bearing plants, were rapidly evolving and adapting to more and more dry land, and increasingly diverse insects, birds and mammals. Plants here like ginkgo and horsetail are "living fossils" that we know from fossil records to have existed alongside earth's earliest plants. Other plants in this exhibit including cycads, palms, ferns, and magnolia are descendents of early plant groups and give us a sense of what it might have been like to walk among our planet's early flora. Ancient fossilized plants are known as paleo-flora.

Gateway Gardens is home to plants, animals, and ART!

Learn more about seasonal features of the garden with custom chalkboard signs, fabricated and illustrated by Laura. There's always something new to highlight!

Take a rest on one of the giant cast-concrete pebbles. These comfortable contoured creations mimic the native natural cobble of our local creeks and rivers.

Explore math, physics, and natural history in the murals in front of the museum. These massive paintings were designed and executed by the Chico State Department of Art and Art History's mural class students.

What makes a habitat? Local wildlife thrives in healthy, ecologically responsible environments. A healthy habitat includes: 1) native plants that provide food sources throughout the year; 2) a water source for drinking, bathing, or spending part or all of their life cycles; 3) natural cover to shelter from bad weather and predators; 4) a safe place to raise young; 5) soil, air, and water that is clean and free of harmful chemicals. These are needs shared across the animal kingdom, including among humans.

Gateway Gardens offers all these important ingredients, and is one of the most biodiverse features of the Chico State campus. Find native birds, lizards, small mammals, bees, butterflies, beetles, aquatic invertebrates, and curious human visitors enjoying the refuge of the garden.

Gateway Gardens is a space for learning! Find seasonally-changing activities in our Discovery Boxes. Look for the chalkboard signs highlighting new and interesting ecological treasures, hand-picked by our Garden Curator. The garden also regularly serves as a research space and living classroom visited by Chico State and Chico High classes. The protected nature of the garden and its high biodiversity make this place a perfect place to study nature within a short walk of the classroom.

Gateway Gardens' high plant and animal biodiversity makes it a "hotspot" in the community, but it is also a literal HOT spot on Chico State's campus. In 2023, Chico State geography students carefully measured ambient and surface temperatures and confirmed that Gateway features one of the warmest microclimates on campus. But native plants are adapted to high temperatures, and Gateway Gardens continues to thrive on as little as twice-per-month summer watering.

Take a break from the heat under the shade of the incense cedar, or under our colorful shade sails.

Laura Lampe has been the curator of Gateway Gardens since 2019. In addition to caring for the plants that call this place home, Laura plans new additions in the exhibits, coordinates collaboration with community groups and educators utilizing the garden, and develops the garden's educational programming and displays. Find her hand-weeding and hand-watering the exhibits, pruning and planting specimens, constructing native floral arrangements for Gateway events, illustrating signage, and scheming and dreaming of new exhibit additions.

Gateway thanks Chico State groundskeeper Gerardo Osorio and irrigation specialist Julio Zepeda as well as Mike Alonzo, Brian Wunsch, Jennifer Jewell, Adrienne Edwards, Gwen Quail, and John Whittlesey for their labor and expertise in support of a thriving garden.