On soil beds near the School of Architecture, a handful of people crouch around budding monkeyflowers, creeping barberry and red buckwheat with clipboards in hand, eyes squinted as they observe leaf irregularities and feel for soil moisture. The bunch — a mix of professors and graduate students — gather over a unifying cause and shared passion for native plants and ecological restoration.
Test Plot, an ecological restoration project involving faculty and students across the landscape architecture field at USC, began in 2019 as an experiment in community-based land stewardship. Its name is a riff on a borrowed agricultural term that refers to the test work farmers perform to maximize yield, reimagined to convey the project’s mission to test plant selection, community stewardship models and landscape maintenance strategies.