On May 19, members of the Westmoreland Conservation District, the Botanical Society of Westmoreland County, and other conservation-minded volunteers will be planting a large variety of Pennsylvania- native plants around Westmoreland County’s premier rehabilitated green building, GreenForge.

The group hopes to have more than 250 woody ornamental shrubs, ground covers, and perennials established in their new locations outside the unique fiberglass-domed entrance to the building and along a 100-foot-wide slope facing that entrance that has been uniquely designed to minimize erosion.

Pennsylvania-native plants – technically defined as those that occurred within the state before settlement by Europeans – are a good choice for this application and for home landscapes as well because they are perfectly adapted for our region’s soil, climate, and conditions. They tend to be vigorous and healthy, so they don’t need a lot of fertilizer or pest controls, and they don’t need to be watered as often as non-native species.

Pennsylvania has approximately 2,100 native plants, for all kinds of conditions – everything from a dry-site-loving cactus (Opuntia humifusa, Prickly pear) to the wet area Pitcher plant (Sarracenia purpurea).

For GreenForge, native species of rhododendron, hydrangea, potentilla, viburnum, bayberry, holly, and low bush blueberry have been selected to provide a variety of textures, spring blooms, and seasonal interest around the building’s foundation and on the facing slope.

Although not as pretty as plants, the slope itself is interesting in the unique way it was created and is being retained. Instead of digging the standard 10 feet into this hillside and installing anchoring material to hold the retaining wall in place, the Westmoreland Conservation District staff chose to anchor part of this slope with 11, 12-foot, galvanized-steel rods drilled into the hillside, much the way companies anchor home-basement walls.

This approach required digging only two feet into the slope and so reduced the amount of soil that was disturbed.

“We prevented about 300 cubic yards of soil from being disturbed and that’s important because less disturbance means less chance of erosion and more chance for rainwater to infiltrate into the ground instead of just running off the surface,” explained Kathy Hamilton, registered landscape architect and stormwater technical assistant for the conservation district.

The other half of the slope is faced with a series of heavy, concrete “pockets” into which low-growing and spreading plants will be tucked. The 110-pound weight of these pockets keeps them in place and helps to retain the hillside. Once the plants are established, the pockets will become less visible.

GreenForge is the latest building to be added to a growing “conservation campus” along the Donohoe Road in Greensburg that includes Donohoe Center, the Westmoreland County Public Works building, and the headquarters of the Westmoreland Conservation District.

GreenForge was originally built in the 1980s and had been vacant for three years when the Westmoreland Conservation District and a group of partners began to bring it back to useable space by installing green building practices and sustainable energy technologies. Last fall, the building partners and volunteers planted two of GreenForge’s roofs with living green plants to create the first green roof in Westmoreland County.

GreenForge’s purpose is to demonstrate conservation approaches and to provide low-cost office space for conservation, agricultural, and rural development organizations.

The first tenants moved in late last year and include the US Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development agency, which works to maintain infrastructure in rural areas; the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation, which works to clean up land and water damaged by past coal-mining practices in 24 counties in western Pennsylvania; and Westmoreland Cleanways, an organization that fights litter and illegal dumping and promotes recycling.

Link: Westmoreland Conservation Campus Expanding to Include GreenForge

5/18/2007