As part of the City of Clarkston's initiative to green their urban spaces, we were hired to develop three city landscapes. The goal for all three landscapes was adding food producing fruit, nut, and perennial plantings, as well as building soil and creating native plant communities.
We built the Refuge Coffee streetscape, developed an urban pocket farm/orchard in Brockett Triangle, and augmented an ecological restoration project with useful native plants in Friendship Forest Park.
clarkston productive urban spaces
farm / commercial portfolio
EST. 2008
All three sites were extremely compacted post-construction sites, devoid of vegetation and topsoil. Our strategies were to amend the soil with lots of organic matter, create opportunities for water to infiltrate, and develop hardy native plant communities that can restore biological diversity to the harsh sites.
before
site conditions
Friendship Forest Park
Brockett Triangle
Refuge Coffee
Construction complete
Featured images: refuge coffee streetscape as-built; sheet mulching for wildflower meadow prep; retaining curb and mediterranean dry-loving fruits trees; friendship forest entrance as-built; friendship forest wetland as-built; native milkweed and joe-pye along wetland edge; elderberry, blackberry, fig, mayhaw, Asian persimmon; native rock meadow species sprouting between recycled granite curbing; friendship forest orchard panorama; friendship forest entrance with weeping native crabapple, hazelnut, and serviceberry; brockett triangle public orchard as-built; elderberry, blackberry, fig, mayhaw, Asian persimmon; brockett triangle public orchard just after construction; paths function as swale berms; custom fence; brockett triangle during construction, blueberry patch; native plantings in bioretention area.
