Last Friday we met with Chris Kline and Christine Dittmar of Cardno Nursery to discuss the completion of the sustainable landscape at The Paddocks apartments in Culver. Last Fall there were a couple of areas that were not completed due to timing and/or where we were not complete on the building construction. As we move into Spring, we should be able to wrap those areas up.
We walked the site to look at areas that were seeded. Some of these will require additional raking and clean up to prepare them for mowing.
While we have mixed in some street trees and fruit trees, we have large areas of turf, low mow fescue and prairie landscapes. It will take a couple of years for everything to gel together, but the effect should be dramatic. While there have been some small installations of rain gardens and sustainable plots throughout Culver’s extraterritorial zoning boundary, to our knowledge, this will be the first complete sustainable landscape installation and the only one expressly approved and endorsed by the Town of Culver.
While on site, Christine examined the trees to see how they weathered our winter. While there were some dead and brittle branches, for the most part, they seemed to be in good condition. She also took the time to install signs on the blue bird boxes that talk about the sustainable landscape and provide links to more information. We also discussed adding some more trees to the site as well as some screening vegetation here and there.
Some of the features yet to be placed include a small playground, a community garden, a fire pit, a park style grill and some raised planting beds. Most of these items were already included in the Cardno plans, but installation was delayed until this Spring. We hope to have all of these items in place before May first.
Raised bed containers such as the one to the right will be installed as part of the community garden. The playground will be a sustainable installation using natural materials such as stumps and logs to encourage creative play. We hope that these things will promote neighborhood interaction and foster a community feel to The Paddocks.
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