The Townhouse board approached me, because of the front yard, to help with this circle in the center of the community (770sq ft) It’s down the street from the new village hall. I know it’s weird that it’s surrounded by street. I think they expected me to augment the circle, you know add a few forbs. But I redesigned the whole thing, aside from the trees, which we couldn’t afford to remove.After volunteering in the forest preserves, (Palos Restoration Project) the job didn’t seem too daunting, as you can imagine. I organized neighbor volunteers, which was tough.... We transplanted the ornamental fountain grass & herbicided the 5 ft high non native rizomatous grass. It took many weekends.
Art was kind enough to bid for the job & made many great suggestions, but the main reason I was able to get the board to approve everything, was thorough plans, and proposing all the cost go into plants & materials, with free volunteer labor. ... There are over 55 species in the circle including 10 species of grass/sedge/rush. I’m hoping to get some new jersey tea and perhaps vines from Art this year.
Before: the monoculture of non-grass just beginning to take off
After planting
Close up of sidewalk with maturing native plants.
