Grounds Services
The campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is set in the gently rolling Piedmont of central North Carolina, and throughout its history there has been a concerted effort to develop a campus that displays a balance of buildings, landscapes, open space, and natural areas. The campus was recognized as a national landmark for outstanding landscape architecture in 1999 by the American Society of Landscape Architects and received a national Green Star award for campus beauty from the Professional Grounds Management Society in 2005 and 2012. The university community regards the campus landscape as one of its most valuable assets, and as the university continues to grow, there has been a concerted effort to maintain the beauty and diversity that are considered part of the Carolina tradition.
There are approximately 760 acres of managed campus grounds that serve a very diverse university community of undergraduates, graduate students, researchers, faculty, staff and visitors. The landscape includes approximately 125 acres of managed lawn and over 30 acres of shrub beds and groundcover. The tree inventory lists 6,710 landscape position trees representing 156 species. Brick sidewalks and low stone walls are a common theme throughout the campus grounds. In maintaining the campus, every effort is made to establish landscape rooms and open lawns with adjacent or overtopping shade trees that provide a setting that invites small gatherings, solitary reflection, and recreation, and is a landscape that the university community will use and enjoy.
Landscape maintenance is performed in all four seasons by crews who are responsible for and take pride in an assigned area of the campus. Assistance is provided to the area crews in specialty areas including irrigation, landscape pest control, and tree pruning by technically trained crews that serve all areas.
Grounds is responsible for landscape installations that are part of a capital project or facility renovation. Please contact our office or one of the Grounds Supervisors if there are any concerns about the campus landscape or if you have a special event of which we should be aware. Available services include:
Contact
Kim Sparrow
Business Services Coordinator
Phone: 919-962-2069
Email: kim.sparrow@facilities.unc.edu