I attended a meeting yesterday at Bartram's Garden to help the garden staff develop plans for their 15-acre meadow. Students from the Longwood/University of Delaware Graduate Program in Public Garden Administration undertake a project each year to help a local public garden achieve a specific goal. This year they are helping Bartram's Garden with plans to improve the meadow, and asked local land managers and ecologists to provide input.
Bartram's Garden is the home of 18th century botanist and plant collector John Bartram and one of the most significant sites for horticulture in America. Today it is located in an industrial part of Philadelphia, surrounded by refinery tank farms instead of the sheep farms of Bartram's day. But the house and garden are a beautiful oasis along the banks of the Schuylkill River.
I remember visiting the meadow in 1991 just a few years after it was installed. It is located on the site of a concrete plant that was later a landfill, and was remediated with sewage sludge mixed with wood chips. Though not completely native the meadow is beautiful—it is the first thing you see when you arrive.
We helped staff and graduate students determine how they might set and achieve goals for the meadow; among other objectives they want to increase diversity of native (broadly defined) plants, increase the value of wildlife habitat, increase the beauty of the site and reflect the Bartram legacy, and lower managmement costs. These are not small goals. Another team is doing extensive surveys of existing conditions: soils, hydrology, and plant communities; this information will help determine how they will proceed.
