What were some of the primary goals for the project? Have they been accomplished?
The primary project goals were to add native plantings around and adjacent to the nature playscape to increase native habitats, improve aesthetics, and create barriers to help direct human traffic.
This planting project contributed to a larger vision of creating habitats we can utilize for both education and controlling the flow of human traffic [in our space]. Creating a barrier for the live birds of prey in the hopes of reducing stress is part of this vision and planted habitats is a great way to accomplish this task while contributing to conservation.
Some of the plantings weren’t located in their original intended areas because of coordinating a contractor building the playground at the same time as coordinating with Feral Flora. We relocated many of these plants to their originally intended areas. The goals of the project were met, with a different garden layout than was originally intended.
Project Timeline
Oct 2023: WCCD, Feral Flora and LSNC Staff connected
November 2023: Initial meeting with Feral Flora, and adapted plan was established
March 2024: 2nd meeting with Feral Flora
April 2024-June 2024: Coordination with Michigan Recreation Construction and Feral Flora
July 2024: Plant install by Feral Flora (July 23rd, 2024)
July – October 2024: Staff ran the management plan (watering/weeding)
The Successes and Challenges of Planting This Garden
The garden is located in a high traffic area, this created both successes and challenges. We know thousands of families have visited and enjoyed the new Nature Playscape Water Play area (opened April 2024) and this garden is front and center when visitors approach. We use native plants in our educational programs, which include field trips for over 9,000 kids in the 20242025 school year, and day camps for 1,400 campers in Summer 2025. We know kids would see the same type of pollinator and native plants they learned about in our programs in our garden spaces because of this project, connecting what they learned to the world around them.
One challenge that has emerged since the planting is that of visitors cutting through the far right of the garden to reach the Nature Playscape from the Raptor Loop. Another challenge was that plantings were made by Feral Flora and by Michigan Recreation Construction contractors in areas that were not intended by our planning meetings. Some species planted did not survive and/or were planted in spaces that were inappropriate for said species based on soil condition and light availability. These challenges were addressed mostly by replanting the plants that wouldn’t have survived or thrived where they were originally planted.
We didn’t know how popular our Nature Playscape area would become, so we adapted our garden space to accommodate the natural pathways that families took to participate in our space.
A snapshot of the garden just after planting in spring 2024.
Plan for Future Maintenance
The density of the plantings were a bit sparse and no seeding plan was created to fill the spaces, thus, invasive/weeds later encroached. Our staff team weeded and mulched the areas to mitigate the weeds. Our future maintenance plan will include additional seeding and more plantings to fill the gaps.
We plan to continue to invest in pollinator gardens at the nature center to create teaching spaces, control visitor traffic with natural barriers and to support our local biome. We expect to pursue similar projects in the future with the experience of this work guiding our plans. We’ll involve volunteers in workdays to complete the projects efficiently and would welcome the WCCD’s involvement in these events.
LSNC Thanks WCCD for support with this project!