Hurt Park Native Plant Garden
March 16, 2009
Photo taken by Lauren Sandoval
By Cecilia Marrero
Winter is receding and top dressing has been checked off the list for spring preparations. For you astronomers, the vernal equinox, the true beginning of spring, is just around the corner. And, fair warning!, there is still the unpredictable last freeze of the season, which many people believe date at the end of tax season, so don’t put your protection blankets away yet! Here at Ecoaddendum, spring preparations are underway and will be completed as we draw closer to the last phase at the Hurt Park Garden.
“Spring cleaning” tasks vary from year to year so our approach in our second year with the Hurt Park Garden was to sustain our beds to stand
against the harsh elements. We began by pulling the weeds from around the established plants when we realized that what we were pulling up was the only thing stabilizing the upper portions of the garden that had already begun to create a mudslide. Hurt Park is central to the GSU campus and stomping-grounds for locals visiting for a daily sun bathe or occasional frisbee throwing. Essentially, heavy foot traffic cutting across the slope over the course of many years killed the original ground cover and resulted in an eroded hillside. As we needed to top-dress the perennial beds anyway, we first laid out a fresh layer of compost. Next, to stabilize the bank, we rolled out jute cloth, otherwise known as “soil saver”, and embedded it along the slope of the garden. This is a biodegradable woven mesh blanket used specifically for erosion control. To help reinforce the jute cloth erosion control, the GSU maintenance crew provided us with 60 two cubic feet bags of coarse pine bark mulch that we spread with an army of two covering roughly 2500 square feet. After several days of weathering, the beds have held up their end of the bargain by holding the soil in place despite several inches of rain over the past two weeks. On a small scale, this low impact method not only reduces soil erosion but implements earth-friendly practices to rejuvenate our natural environment under harsh conditions!
We at Ecoaddendum will continue our efforts to maintain the local native species out at the Hurt Park Native Plant Garden. Beyond the garden, we plan to eventually stabilize the entire surrounding sections of exposed soil, which GSU maintenance is in full support of. Thanks guys! And to complete the work for this seasons upkeep, we will fill in the gaps caused by the foot traffic with native shrubs and forbs (starting process viewed in photo to the right). We will keep you updated with our ongoing small-scale restoration project with photos of the year-round maintenance.
In the top photo, myself and our organization Director, Pandra Williams, are stabilizing the soil in the perennial beds with the jute erosion control cloth.
really good article…
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