?A University of Guelph student makes the case for spontaneous pavement vegetation in urban areas.
The volunteer vegetation that grows up in the cracks and edges of city streets is both ubiquitous and overlooked. Yet in his Student Research entry, “Leveraging the Potential of Spontaneous Pavement Vegetation,” Ryan De Jong, Associate ASLA, set out to prove that these resilient plants, also called spontaneous pavement vegetation (SPV), may hold the key to increasing biodiversity even in heavily developed areas.
Photographs of spontaneous pavement vegetation that Ryan De Jong, Associate ASLA, took during his exploration of Southern Ontario.
To conduct his research, De Jong walked or biked more than 260 miles in Southern Ontario, taking about 2,700 photos of SPV thriving in the city?s gray space. Once it was classified and cross-referenced with city drawings, De Jong used this information to develop 11 pavement designs that celebrate and benefit these often-ignored patches of life. Pavers re-create the straight edges, circles, wall cracks, and meandering lines in which this type of vegetation grows, but controlled widening of these cracks and openings allows for a growing medium and far more intentional planting, as well as increased greenway connectivity and stormwater filtration. The result is city sidewalks that are both aesthetically pleasing and environmentally productive.
Ryan De Jong, Associate ASLA

Faculty Adviser: Karen Landman
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