Native wildflowers and grasses can transform bare, degraded, or lawn habitats into a manageable landscape with environmental, societal, and aesthetic benefits. With proper planning, implementation and maintenance, restored meadows can provide an inexpensive, attractive way to manage open space.
Despite the best intentions, many restoration projects have been ill planned and poorly maintained. They have ignored fundamental principles of site and plant selection, ecological succession and plant growth. Within a few years, these projects are sometimes abandoned in disillusionment because they've become landscape eyesores that fail to provide even the intended benefits of biodiversity or habitat creation.
Our two-day course will show you when restoration is appropriate, how to plan and carry out a successful restoration project and how to maintain the project to meet your management objectives.
YOU WILL LEARN
• The natural processes important to meadow restoration
• How to choose and find the best plant materials for your project
• How to design and budget a successful project
• Common problems encountered when installing a meadows -- and their solutions
• Control of invasive species
• How to involve the public in your projects
• Educational opportunities using the meadows
On the second day of our program, you will visit a number of restored meadows and have the opportunity to see and discuss completed restoration projects.
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