Monday, October 15, 2012

The Ohio-Native Meadow Project: Year One



 

A year ago, the Port Authority began a demonstration project that was the product of a brainstorming session at The Wilds on what basic things we could do to improve the campus setting for our customers' personnel at the Aerospace Center.  We called it the Ohio-Native Meadow project. 

We took about an acre of land that was undevelopable.  It sat too close to the creek and right under a high voltage transmission power line.

Yet we still had to maintain it.  It got mowed weekly, yet it was only seen by security cameras and walkers by.

So we copied what we saw at The Wilds and followed the lead set by The Dawes Arboretum and planted a meadow with a seed mix consistently of only Ohio-native wildflowers and grasses.

From our research, we knew it would take a while.  Most sources said it would take a couple of years to really take.  And that's proven true, especially in a drought year.

But it's already proven to be a good project that we'll probably look to duplicate.

We don't have to mow it, except to cut it down once a year as part of a proper maintenance plan.  That has allowed us to keep lawn maintenance costs flat and spare a few carbon molecules from less fuel consumption.

And it's a nice, quiet setting too.

I've not done this yet, but, in theory, I could go out from my office and conduct business from there.  I can transfer my phone to my iPhone or iPad and be checking e-mail, surfing the web, and taking and making phone calls as if I was right at my desk.

Pretty cool.  See the video for more.

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