This spring, Drake Community Library is moving into the second phase of its landscape redesign. The library features prairie plants and grasses in their landscape, but decided last year to remove these plants in some areas and replace them with more conventional landscaping.

The first part of the project, completed last year, focused on making the streetscape more appealing to visitors, including planting Rhizomatous Tall Fescue grass, which will be greener and look cleaner.

This whole campaign has been about bringing people together, making our library grounds a gateway to the prairie, versus trying to be the prairie, said Library Director Marilyn Kennett. We reevaluated our goals and purposes and therefore did more of a conventional landscaping on our streetscape because literally there were comments that people couldnt find us because they thought we were an abandoned school building.

Drake Library moves ahead in landscape redesign. Contributed photo.

The second part of the landscaping project will focus on structural improvements which are necessary for the prairie to be successful and accessible.

We have to be able to have people who are in their hiking boots and their high heels, Kennett said. We need to accommodate people in their high heels with pathways and park benches and we need to accommodate people who want to delve into the prairie by leaving as much natural as we can. Thats the convergence, the compromise that were aiming for.

This includes building permeable pavement walkways in several places in the prairie. The permeable pavement allows for water to move through spaces in the pavers and there are special soils underneath to absorb water, which is not presently being absorbed due to the high amounts of clay left in the soil after the construction of the library.

Additionally, areas of bioswale will be added in order to help solve erosion problems and keep excess rainwater on site. They help to improve water quality and convey heavy rains to storm sewers.

At the start of this project, the library was in a difficult position as community members had conflicting positions over the prairie landscape.

They had some folks in the community thanking them for installing the prairie and others telling them that it was an eyesore and to rip it out. I met with the Drake Library board of directors and convinced them to give us a little time to manage the prairie before getting rid of it, wrote Center for Prairie Studies Outreach Coordinator Elizabeth Hill in an email to The S&B. Prairies are composed of a large diversity of perennial plants, and they take a while to grow, so it is going to take a while before the prairie reaches our goals of beauty and functioning, but it will be worth the wait.

Original post:
Drake Library moves ahead in landscape redesign

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February 20, 2015 at 6:31 am by Mr HomeBuilder
Category: Landscape Hill