After setting up 100 Christmas trees to celebrate 100 years since the Kump House was completed, we are starting to think about a better landscape plan outdoors. When the house was built, it was on an eleven-acre farm that stretched from Seneca Road to the railroad high on the hill that is now south of highway 33.

Soon a white wooden fence encircled the whole farm to protect cows and horses from cars on the highways. There was a wide rolling pasture and lots of room for an apple orchard, barn, chicken house, dog pen, garden, pig pen, and smoke house. However, after 1937 when highway 33 came through the pasture, Kump property was cut in half, and the old farm slowly disappeared.

The land south of highway 33 was sold and later commercially developed. The pasture land has eroded down about fifteen feet. Now the barn and garden are used for the City Tree Nursery, but the pasture has been flooded by drainage from parking lots south of highway 33. More than half of Kump land that the city holds in trust is now a wetland.

It can be very dry in the summer months, but the whole space may flood when Goddin Creek becomes clogged between Randolph Avenue and the river. Nevertheless, this wetland serves as a purification system for the water that flows to the Tygart Valley River from the east along highway 33. We teach our students that the wetland is now “the liver for the river.” Botanist Elizabeth Byers has identified thirty-six native plants in the Kump wetland area, and volunteers are helping to protect them by removing invasive species.

Many years ago there were more attractive trees on the Kump property, but they were not all native to West Virginia. I remember a row of Lombardy Poplar trees that lined the garden fence to help break the wind blowing near the barn. There were also two tall Colorado Blue Spruce trees that stood in front of the house when I was a child. Now the old Pampas grass and huge Sycamore trees dominate the apple orchard and the south lawn.

A hundred years ago exotic plants were popular, but now botanists recommend native plants because they help balance the natural environment. At this time in history, landscape plans include more native plants and fewer invasives. Now the American Holly trees and native azalea bushes planted by Dr. Don Roberts are among the best plants on Kump property. Forty years after his death, two of Dr. Roberts’s American Hollys stand 30-feet tall in front of the house.

The Elkins Tree Board and Friends of Trees have planted rows of native River Birch and Sycamore trees in the wetland. They are also responsible for replacing heritage apple trees in the orchard and adding Redbuds along Seneca Road. We are hoping to add more maples for brighter red leaves at Forest Festival time and a new border of evergreen trees to spruce up the wetland in winter. We also need more trees that will help protect the house and garden from the west wind.