Municipal Park Landscaping

Our local municipality received a $550,000 grant for a new lodge. This facility will be built in 2007. It replaces a structure built in 1936 and never remodeled. I will chair the landscape committee. The site is currently Oak Savannah, Zone 5, heavily wooded with mostly oak, on sandy soil (ph 6.5). There is no real expertise on this committee so I turn to all you pros out there for plant material suggestions. As you can imagine dogwood does well there. I would like to see more Cornus and add Ilex and Tsuga Canadensis. Virburnums would also work for the sunny areas. If you had a once in a lifetime opportunity to landscape for generations to come what plant material would you try to work into this project? It will be heavily used (and currently is )as a passive recreation park with shaded areas with picnic tables and a walking path. There will be a new parking lot that will need the edges softened. One end of the building will hold a small senior center with a full service kitchen for showers and family reunions with a veranda looking out through the wooded area. I want peace, shade, color and sturdiness and a slightly wild look. It is very rustic now and the community has expressed a desire to try to maintain a rustic appeal. I am open to all suggestions. The municipality has a history of good management of its public trees and right-of-way plantings. The proper work will be done to get the stuff properly planted and established. But this IS public use and some concessions will have to be made for general wear and tear and not much in the way of supplemental watering past the first year. I want so much to get this right.

Cool. I grew up in Oxford OH, and frequently went birdwatching up in Lucas county when I was a teenager. Here are some suggestions I would make, knowing as I do the lake effect weather etc.

1) Try to create lots of understory zones under the taller trees. Suggestions there would include dogwoods with variegated leaves (kousa is but one example http://davesgarden.com/pf/showimage/63980/ ) because they do wonderful things with the filtered light.

2) SPRING BULBS! good grief you have the perfect location for a truly massive show of naturalizing bulbs ranging from snowdrops to daffodils. Forget tulips -- they are too expensive and time-intensive for public plantings.

3) Viburnums, esp the larger ones you don't get to see very often

4) Daylilys -- one of the toughest plants you will ever find, low maintenance, and they are tolerant of kids tromping around through the flower beds.

Will you have areas you can set aside for naturalizing as a meadow? If so, take a look at what various counties in Wisconsin have been doing to reestablish plantings of native prairie species.

Will you be presenting a formal proposal? I can tell you from experience that your biggest selling point will be quantification of long-term recurring maintenance tasks, not necessarily the initial expense.

My most urgent recommendation: if you don't have a good site planner (usually a landscape architect with a strong plants background) on the team designing the construction documents and process, GET ONE NOW.

All the excellent plant suggestions and design in the world won't make up for the severe damage to the existing plants and site that WILL occur if you don't employ someone who understands how the existing plants grow and how to avoid damaging them while building the lodge.

Putting makeup on a pig only gets you so far...

VV you are so correct. I couldn't see the site planner for the trees. Or the viburnum, as it may be.

I was fortunate also to come into possession of a professional drainage study for this property, and boy was that a good thing.

There will be a major engineering firm doing the building design, however I have seen some of their landscaping ideas on other smaller projects and I wasn't too impressed. No one on the staff knew what Cotinus obovatus was. We do know the drainage. In previous projects with this firm they came to us and asked us what plants we wanted to protect and preserve, fenced and wrapped the trees, with no input as to appropriatness. If left soley to this firm I am afraid this thing could wind up landscaped like a shopping center. I am going to push for the addition of a site planner. Pretty confidant I can swing it.

Making a presentation will be important. Thank you so much for suggesting it. I think that this is the way to go with the architect. You have pointed out to me that we need to get on board with the design firm right from the start, not wait until the plans are drawn and then try to landscape. We certainly need to communicate the general look and feel of a semi-wild space.

I personally love viburnums and thanks for the reminder about kousa. I have one of my own, mature now, that is growing in nearly identical conditions. It thrives and is really beautiful. The scope of this project is a lot to take in and the biggest project this community has ever undertaken. I want to hit the ground running. Keep these great ideas coming!

Here's a couple of starting points for you, if you need them.

National Firm Finder site for landscape architects:
http://online.asla.org/scriptcontent/index_find_firm.cfm

Ohio Chapter, American Society of Landscape Architects:
http://www.ocasla.com/

I hope all design professionals reading here take this in the sense it is meant: we are all trained in our fields, and some are even cross-trained across disciplines. It is rare, however, and most of the time large engineering firms or architecture firms are not primarily concerned with the living landscape. I hope the primary firm that snapple's community has hired employs landscape architects, and that they are heavily involved from concept through implementation.

Find out the curriculum vitae of all members of the project team, and work from there.

Also ask for references from previous projects, and go tour them. Don't take the Pretty Slideshow at face value. Talk to the neighbors of previous projects, find out what it was like during the implementation phase. Nothing worse than having a bunch of irate villagers coming at with pitchforks because the contractor turned out to be an inconsiderate slob.

Make sure the soil doesn't get badly compacted by heavy machinery running over and over it. I've seen landscaped grounds where the soil is so compacted it's more like concrete, water doesn't drain properly, and trees will hardly grow at all.

Resin

I believe the Nature Conservancy has a property of Oak Savannah near Toledo. Might be worth a field trip just to get the juices flowing and perhaps an appreciation for the many species you might already have present. This sounds to me like a project where it would be better to error on the side of preserve more/ add less; then, if necessary, go back and work some more things in.

Also, your post made no mention of the amount of deer pressure the site is under. If it is heavily populated by deer, this changes everything you can do there. You will basically lose the plant diversity that exists or existed and you will be forced to flood the place nothing but a ton of toxic landscape landscape material if you want anything at all.

Scott

Decumbent - this site is about 11 miles from Oak Openings Park, which is Oak Savannah and Kitty Todd, a praire/oak savannah site managed by the Nature Conservancy. The site for the new lodge is a 14 acer park, pretty small when you carve out the necessary parking. The municipality has been managing the biology of the park with the aid of the ODNR. They have been invaluable in their assistance. The sort of secret function of the landscape committee is to try to keep the whole thing from being paved over to accomodate a half million dollar multipurpose building. Unfortunately there are some individuals who will be participating in the design and siting process that see little or no value in passive recreation, let alone a natural area. The landscape committee hopefully will be made up entirely of members who will be the counterforce. There are more challenges here than just plant material, it is preserving places FOR plant material. Deer don't get into the park. It is surrounded on all 4 sides by roads with light to heavy traffic. I was married by the town Mayor outdoors in this park next to the shelter house under a wild dogwood in bloom. The marriage has stuck. The dogwood was removed to make way for a walking path. Sigh.

Then you need to get a survey of species currently on the property. Any protected or endangered species and you may have more leverage.

Also look up studies on the economic feedback into a community that has naturalized open spaces. Wisconsin is a source for that, Denver and suburbs, Seattle. Search under "economic value" and "green space"

Forgot to add -- get in contact with your local Audubon Society IMMEDIATELY -- like TODAY. Find out if the location in question has been part of the annual Christman Bird Count, and SPring Bird Count. See if they have any interest in working with you in gathering the information you need.

Aww, come on Resin, give me break. It's obvious I can't spell or type too good. Actually two years ago we planted some Acer in an area where we had to remove oak due to oak wilt. The park initially was nearly a complete monoculture in terms of trees. There were a couple of Celtis, Cornus and Prunus serotina, and one glorius Acer saccharum. The park wasn't well managed in terms of plants until about seven years ago when the adjacent local library wanted to take some for parking and the citizens were not too happy about more asphalt. The municipality took notice and denied the library, told them they could always put up another building somewhere else but the municipality couldn't get more park land. I talked with the municipal administrator this morning. He is very aware of the need to preserve green space. The municipality has a chance to purchase a vacant commercial building with ample parking directly across the street. The street is lightly traveled. Pedestrian traffic could be accomodated. This would take a lot of pressure off the park and actually allow for more green space than it already has. Some current parking could be reclaimed. In addition the landscape committee will be at the table with the site planner in the first design phase. Right now things are looking up a bit. I still plan on keeping up the pressure on green space preservation by contacting the ODNR, Nature Conservancy and the Toledo Naturalist's Association. The TNA just finished their bird count on December 17th. Keep the ideas coming, please. I am using all of them. I need them.

I know it is a tiny bit of topic, but you can ask the engineering firm to look into the use of a more environmental friendly parking lot. There is a great example of one here at the Morton Arboretum. They rave about it and would most likely be very helpful in getting your engineering firm anything they need as far as prices, details, specifications, etc for designing one. Here is a link to their site with a brief description of it.

http://www.mortonarb.org/branching_out/branchingout_parking.html

Willis

Willis, I read the link and immediately forwarded it to the municipal administrator and Mayor. It will definitely be one of things we look at. Certainly better than a sea of ashphalt. Thank You

Mary

It isn't cheap but there are grants out there that I believe can help fund these things. The Morton Arb got a little over $1.2 million for it from the U.S. EPA section 319 financial assistance grant program. Check with your state's EPA and the feds EPA for these programs.

Willis

Sorry snapple, I reread your initial post and noticed $550,000. When I read it the first time I misread and thought 5.5 mil. For $550,000 you might want to limit your money to the building and landscaping and have them not funnel much money into a parking lot. The one at the arboretum is nice though.

Willis

Willis, we think there is another round of funding for Section 319 grant money. The administrator was checking this afternoon. Just introducing the concept is important. The municipality has to meet certain criteria in managing storm water runoff. Green parking would carry a lot of weight in meeting the mandates. It actually could prove to be cost effective in the long run. 5.5mil, Oh how I wish! But believe me, this $550,000 is BIG to us. I want to talk to the Toledo Metroparks and see if they have used this concept any where. If they havn't they might know who has that would be close. I would like to see it and perhaps take some municipal officials for a look- see. Again, I am grateful for your information. I need all the ammo I can get to keep this from being a shiny new building surrounded by a sea of ashphalt and not much else.
There are people working on this who think a tree's highest value is as firewood and recreation means some kind of ball field. The former Mayor made a public statement that no tree should ever be planted in the right-of-way. The current Mayor is much more enlightened but didn't understand that different trees grow to different heights and spread at maturity until a couple of years ago. Unbelievable huh? I was stunned. What do people see when they drive or walk or vacation? How can you miss a Gingko Biloba 'Autmn Gold' in the fall or a snow laden Blue Spruce in the winter with a cardinal or an Amelanchier in the spring? I think it is a missing gene.