Rutgers Forestry Club students Katie Marra, Sebastian Chamberlain and Atomu Saul pose with the last plank for the boardwalk, along with Finn, the dog. Photo credit: Moira Keihm
October 23 marked an exciting milestone for the Rutgers Urban Forestry program and Forestry Club with the successful completion of a collaborative project that turned reclaimed wood into a revitalized trail at Rutgers Gardens.
The group of students from Rutgers Forestry Club and Rutgers Gardens interns who installed the boardwalk. Photo credit: Roslyn Dvorin
With help from Rutgers Gardens staff, interns and volunteers, 120 feet of new boardwalk was completed—blending research, learning and sustainability into one beautiful upgrade for the Helyar Woods Fern Trail.
The story of how this revitalized boardwalk made from reclaimed Dawn redwood came into being is a combination of impactful research, student innovation and sustainable thinking and partnership.
Rutgers professor of forestry from 1981 to 2001, the late John E. Kuser planted more than 350 Dawn redwood (Metasequoia) seedlings at the Rutgers Horticultural Farm III in a 75-year experiment to expand the germplasm of the species in the United States. A deciduous conifer, Dawn redwood was thought to be extinct until 1941 when it was found growing in China.
Roslyn Dvorin, outreach coordinator for the Rutgers Urban Forestry Program, explained that “the trees at the farm were planted closely together in four blocks, with the idea of thinning the trees in years 25 and 50, with a plan to accomplish this thinning without diminishing the collection.”
In 2023, a little past the 25-year mark of Kuser’s experiment, tree care professionals donated their time, energy and equipment to complete the first thinning of the Dawn redwood and honor Kuser’s memory.
Atomu Saul and Sophie-Elizabeth Villacampa work to mill the Dawn redwood logs for the boardwalk project. Photo credit: Roslyn Dvorin
“The thinning was completed with Kuser’s vision in mind, to allow the densely planted collection to grow properly without sacrificing the genetic diversity,” explained Dvorin.
Fast forward to 2025 when the Urban Forestry Program began thinking of creative ways to reuse the wood on campus. Katie Marra, a student with the Forestry Club suggested a partnership with Rutgers Gardens to rebuild a worn section of boardwalk using Dawn redwood from the thinning. The idea took hold, and with Urban Forestry intern Atomu Saul taking the lead in milling and coordinating the construction, the club began utilizing the program’s portable sawmill to mill planks to construct the 120-foot length of the boardwalk.
“These redwoods have now lived three lives, as part of a research plot, as an educational and training resource at the sawmill on Cook Campus and now as a new boardwalk improving the trails at Rutgers Gardens,” said Dvorin.
The impact of this collaborative project is not lost on 2025 Rutgers Gardens intern Isabelle Shields, an undergraduate at Rutgers-Newark, who shared her pride through an account of her working alongside her peers in this hands-on, sustainable on-campus project.
“Working on the boardwalk project in Helyar Woods was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my internship at Rutgers Gardens. Our team spent time preparing the area by cutting back thick patches of greenbriar, poison ivy and invasive plants. It was hot and sometimes overwhelming work, navigating through dense growth, but we tackled it together and kept spirits high.
Rutgers Forestry Club student Sebastian Chamberlain and Rutgers Gardens student horticulturist Isabelle Shields work together to secure the Dawn Redwood planks. Photo credit: Moira Keihm
Before the new wood could go in, we spent two of the hottest days of the summer dismantling and removing the old, worn-out boardwalk by hand. It was physically intense, having to axe through each wooden panel and rip up the sunken base layer buried in the ground. But it was also satisfying to know we were making way for something better. After that, we carried the old wood out through the trails, loaded it into the Workman carts, and made multiple trips to haul it all out.
After taking out the old boardwalk from Helyar Woods, we had to get supplies for the new boardwalk! Maxine, the Assistant Director: Horticulture, Lucy, my coworker, and I went shopping to get the base layer of the bridge and nails. We loaded twelve planks of wood and four boxes of nails into our work truck and took them back to Rutgers Gardens. When we arrived back at the gardens, my coworkers helped unload the truck and place the items onto a tailgate.
Once the Forestry team milled the Dawn redwood planks, we picked up the wood from campus and loaded each plank into our work truck. This took us two trips to complete, but we were able to tour their building which was really cool and new to us! When we were done, we loaded the planks into our carts and brought it all to the work site – carrying heavy stacks down narrow, uneven trails.
We then helped unload each plank and put them in categories based on the numbers on the side of each plank. We handed each plank to the forestry team to have them line up each piece! It was awesome seeing the whole thing come together piece by piece, especially knowing we played a big part in almost every step. What made it meaningful was the teamwork of the forestry team and us. Everyone brought their strengths, encouraged each other, and worked through the heat without giving up.
One moment that stood out was chatting with the Forestry team. We swapped stories about our projects and joked about how many bug bites we’d racked up. My favorite interaction was when two of the Forestry team members let Solana and I drill the final nails of the bridge that day. It was a small interaction, but it reminded me how cool it is when different programs come together for a shared goal.
This project taught me a lot, from how to safely and efficiently haul lumber through the woods to working as a team in tough outdoor conditions. It wasn’t always glamorous (especially the poison ivy part), but it was rewarding to see it finished. It is going to make a huge difference for visitors. It’ll give them safer, more accessible passage through Helyar Woods and help protect the landscape at the same time.
We’re all proud of what we accomplished. The boardwalk may be made of Dawn Redwood, but it was built with a lot of heart, sweat and teamwork.”
