Friday, October 16, 2015

Refreshing a Meadow…

So… Here is Matt Wolfe’s plan for the Minnesota Native Prairie 2.0 (click on image to see it huge). The highlighted areas are being replenished with 1500 new plantings of 19 different plants and grasses, two new trees are being added, and the entire grounds of the “L” Shaped House are being top dressed with pine bark mulch. We are being especially mindful to include plants in the meadow that will attract both Hummingbirds and Monarch butterflies.

We are also re-configuring the irrigation system adding two new watering heads in the highlighted areas while removing heads in the lower right hand corner that are no longer needed. It is especially cool to see that this area has grown in so well that we will no longer have to water the plants.

 

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The project starts with the pine bark mulch top dressing. We engaged Justin Crandall Midwest Groundcover to blow-in the mulch. He and his dad showed up with his amazing truck and spent two days blowing  90 cubic yards of their pine bark mulch. The whole neighborhood smelled like a pine forest for two days after they finished!

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Matt and his crew form Lee’s Landscape came in right behind the mulching operation to start installing the new plants in the meadow.  Some of the “flats” containing rooted plants can be seen sitting on the freshly installed mulch in the photos below.

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Planting the 1500 rooted plugs in the three areas across the bottom of the front yard took two days. The two photos below show the meadow near the end of their efforts. Once they finished planting plugs an application of corn meal gluten is applied covered with a sprinkling of additional pine bark mulch. Now we all sit back and hope for a nice blanket of snow to cover everything for the winter.

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