Tuesday, August 19, 2014

The Remodel Begins!


Today is the first day of the Berry Prairie remodel!  We are disposing of all of the dead plants that didn't survive the Roofing Fiasco of 2012, taking the live plants off the roof and putting them into a nursery in the meantime, and then changing the landscape of the roof.  

We're working with the fabulous Allison Fleury of Inside Out Landscape Architecture in Jackson for the design.  UW Facilities Planning, the building architects at Malone Belton Abel, and the contractor, Arcon, are big players in this game too.

The new roof will have 2 berms to add some height and interest, as well as a larger plant list that includes plants native within a 200 mile radius (rather than a 25 mile radius as before).  We'll have three distinct zones showing different ecosystems: prairie, foothills and alpine.  And we're changing our irrigation system to be pop-up smart-sprinklers (that can gauge wind speed, recent rainfall, humidity, etc. and change their sprinkling accordingly).  



A few photos of the initial steps:

1.  Remove all dead plants (leaving little craters that make it look like we play polo on the green roof)



2. Pot up tiny seedlings that might get trampled in the process



3. Pot up the rest of the plants for safe keeping during the remodel



Stay tuned for more updates!


Written by Brenna Marsicek, UW Biodiversity Institute

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