ÃŽ am embarking on a project to bring both beauty and a learning environment to an inner city school. We currently have an all weather field with evening lighting which the soccer club uses for a practice field in the winter months. There is plenty of concrete and pea gravel (under the play equipment) mixed with some weedy grass. I would like to start with the school entrance and move on to the area between the concrete and the all weather field. I have no ideas for the entrance. I would like to put up a parallel row of trees between the concrete and the field to utilize an unusable strip of land to create shade and a break between the hard surfaces. Challenges are money (as always), a significant homeless problem in the neighbourhood, and safety for the childern. I would like to utilize native plants as much as possible and keep maintenance to a minimum. HELP!!!! Any advise, ideas, resources - anything - would be wonderful! Cheers! Jill
Hi any chance of a pic of the area you are dealing with. possibly some rough mesurements? It would helps to sugest trees and such, if we had a rough idea of the size we are dealing with. Best regards Doug
try and get ahold of someone at the PNW chapter of the ISA, you may be able to organize an Arbor day even and have the trees donated or subsidized at the least, free labor from locals and hey, its a party. I don't really have details on how to proceed but, try here and see if there is any contacts to proceed with, otherwise, try contacting the parks dept of Maple Ridge and see who is responsible for the trees and such (urban forester? city arborist?) and see what they might be able to do for you. link 1: http://www.pnwisa.org/ link 2: http://www.tcf-fca.ca/index_e.htm link 3: http://www.canadanursery.com/canadanursery/bclna/index.lasso link 4: http://www.isa-arbor.com/ for the record, if you have a hard time getting help, give me a call and I would be happy to donate a few hours to help out if I can. Supervising planting or perhaps doing up a basic design and planting plan....
Evergreen Evergreen is a well-established Canadian program that helps schools landscape their yards in an eco-friendly way. The emphasis is on using native species to create small 'habitats' that will attract birds and can also be part of science courses. They have a Vancouver office. More info here: http://www.evergreen.ca/en/index.html
Thanks for the links! They have been very helpful. I will be taking some pictures and will attempt to post them (I am rather computer illiterate so wish me luck!). The initial area I am starting with is 12' x 90' - wish to put in a parallel row of deciduous trees for shade as this area is in full sun. Thanks again! Jill
school ground restoration Jill, it's been a couple months since you started this thread, and I'd like to know how your project is coming along. It's of particular interest for me because I too am working to bring some plant life back to a clean-shaven school ground. I'm in Abbotsford, and there's a creek running through the grounds of the school which I attend, and I'm doing my darnedest to convince the authorities to allow me to do some native plantings along the streambanks. They're worried about aesthetics however, as well as safety, so maybe you can tell me how you bypassed these obstacles. Did you ever manage to upload those pictures? I'd love to see 'em. I hope that you've managed to return some green into your schoolground. Far too many schoolgrounds are nothing more than a barren field for sports and a playground. Kids love it when they have woods to play in and trees to climb, so we shouldn't deny them this opportunity. I'm lucky in that I have a creek to work with, especially since it's fish bearing. With the creek comes all kind of educational opportunities that a lot of kids just don't have in our very urbanized communities.
More info Daniel & Jill, Here's some additional info that you might find useful. Stewardship booklets (can be purchased or printed from PDF file) http://www.stewardshipcentre.bc.ca/sc_bc/stew_series/bc_stewseries.asp Pacific Streamkeepers Federation (including link to Abbotsford Streamkeepers) http://www.pskf.ca/resources/links.html Naturescape British Columbia http://www.hctf.ca/nature.htm Harry Hill Roberts Creek, BC
