Edible landscaping, machine learning and sheepmowers – an upcoming student-run conference has something for everyone. “LABash” is an annual landscape architecture conference that brings together students, educators and professionals from the U.S. and Canada.

On a sunny day in June, about 30 acres of land tucked along rolling hills just north of Capay were set on fire. Wearing a bright yellow, long sleeve shirt, long pants, leather gloves, hard hat and heavy-duty goggles, UC Davis Assistant Professor Emily Schlickman participated in her first prescribed burn, a planned and controlled fire that aims to help reduce wildfire risk.

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When UC Davis student Madison “Madi” Burns joined the Davis Rewilding Society during her freshman year, it helped bring her future into focus. The second-year landscape architecture major said she has developed a much better understanding of the importance of native plants from her involvement with the student-run organization.

An ordinary bus stop in Vallejo has a fresh new look. The local site got a makeover designed by UC Davis students Ashley Gear and Katie Wong, both seniors majoring in landscape architecture.

Solano County Transit (SolTrans), which runs the bus service in Vallejo, recently unveiled its newly transformed bus stop located at Gary Circle and Magazine Street. SolTrans chose the students’ design, which Gear and Wong created last spring for the “Plants in the City” course led by Assistant Professor Haven Kiers.

Bus stops, bike paths, sidewalks and other spots often overlooked in the community will become areas of beauty — for the sake of science. That’s the idea behind the Seed Pile Project, which asks community members from as far east as Sacramento and as far west as the East Bay to drop a pile of native wildflower seeds near their home or office and monitor the growth.

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Take a seat and relax on the new addition to the UC Davis campus – a sod couch. The outdoor seating is located near the main entrance to Hunt Hall, not far from the Memorial Union (MU) and the Unitrans bus terminal. As the name implies, it’s a couch made of soil and grass sod. The unique fixture is the product of landscape architecture students who completed the Design and Build course last fall, which was led by instructors Haven Kiers and Gabino Marquez.

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Grazing hours: 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The UC Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement Program has awarded funding to 14 new research projects, including five to faculty in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, that will address diverse issues such as climate change, the welfare of families, and cultivating a new grain crop.