Abundant Design, LLC provides Des Moines and Central Iowa with Edible & Sustainable Landscaping, Regenerative Land Use Consulting, Permaculture Design and Installation services.
Our Mission:
Our Mission: To enable individuals and communities to take an active part in the cultivation of systems that provide the highest quality fruits, vegetables, herbs and other yields, in a way that benefits themselves, cares for the land and environment, and provides a surplus to use, share and reinvest into the system.
Earlier this season we had been joking that even though we were busy, we hadn't done a single rain garden installation yet. We had done some revamping of a couple older ones, an edible landscape for a commercial project, several large native plantings and a homestead orchard.
Little did we know that we would do two back-to-back rain garden installs, that also wanted to include as many food producing plants as possible!
Earlier this year the Polk County Water Resources team asked us to help with a special project. They were hoping to try a new prairie sod product they had learned about by webinar. There was a small drainage easement near Ankeny that was a likely candidate for this project, and the neighboring homeowners had been fighting weeds and water issues for several years while trying to maintain the space.
Before - First Look Messy drainage easement from the outlet
With steady Spring rains delaying cutting, a communication mix-up and surprise shipping date, the schedule was in a bit of a kerfuffle, but we rearranged our plate and things turned out ok. Pfew!
The existing sod was cut and removed, using it to patch in some rougher spots along the neighboring lot. Looking at these pictures is a reminder of how much turfgrass there was.
Those rolls were heavy too!
Pallets of the new sod arrive at the job site. The plants were well rooted into the mat material. Even though it seemed shallow, there were many species (guessing the deeper-rooted ones) were seedlings mixed in with the taller grasses, sedges and quick growing black-eyed susans. Our little dump trailer has moved a lot of material over the years!
Native Prairie Sod, delivered and untarped
The Prairie Sod was installed and pinned, with extra pins and rock armor near the storm drain outlet. We also rearranged the boulders to make mowing easier for the homeowner around the outlet.
Native Prairie Sod
And why would it not rain during the installation? Rain days hit us hard when our projects are typically right in "the line of fire", or flooding in our case.
Eventually it dried out enough for work to continue! Time to rearrange the boulders...
This, along with the sod laid at the Public Works facility, will be a good test case for the water resource team to assess feasibility of using native sod in stormwater projects. It provides instant coverage, many good-sized plants from day one, a few early bloomers in flower, with others soon to follow. It has lots of water flow down and across the site, typical clay soil and full sun.
After - Prairie Sod
I could see us using this for similar products in the future as it seems like a great solution for large projects, new construction and commercial parking or neighborhood detention basins. I also imagine, at least on some of our projects, we might design an intentional planting of selected natives as a border and to lead the eye into the "wilder" look of prairie sod like this.
After - Overlooking the easement from above the stormwater outlet
We design and install edible landscapes, we are NOT edible landscapers...
...someone needs to inform the ticks and mosquitoes!
A recent article I read mentioned that some invasive species of plants can increase populations of ticks! It turns out, the dense, thorny Japanese Barberry shrub is actually great habitat for ticks.
“Barberry thickets actually make a pretty good habitat, not just for ticks but for some of their host species,” said Susan Elias, a research associate at the Lyme and Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in Scarborough. “You’re creating a perfect storm, when you have these non-native species coming into the landscape.”
One of our last job sites had a TON of ticks (quite a few have this year), and we removed several barberry shrubs in addition to the retaining walls and prairie bed install. I don't know that the ticks were living here with the abundance of other habitat nearby, but it will keep these bushes from reseeding (with help from birds) throughout their acreage and other natural spaces.
Invasive Barberry, ouch!
Invasive species can cause lots of issues in our natural areas.
Before planting anything new, check to see if it is invasive (not to be confused with an aggressive native) and if you need assistance with invasive species removal we can help!
In this third installment of the Water Water Everywhere Series, I originally wanted to share some Simple Solutions, but before I do I think it is fitting to contrast it first with What NOT To Do!
Before you continue, you might want to check out the first two articles-
Over the last couple years, I've tried to bring awareness to the problems of increasing runoff -
Flooding, Pollution, Desertification and more...
Today I share the thoughts of a friend of mine, that he shared on social media awhile back during another Natural Disaster. I forget which one now, likely Hurricane Katrina, but his words stuck with me. It is scary how it seems we have actually taken steps to make ourselves and communities Less Resilient and More Fragile.
"Design for brittleness rather than resiliency - ahhh "natural" disasters - they always make it so starkly clear. If humanity wants to multiply - rather than reduce - the affects of disasters, we couldn't be doing a better job:
Step 1: Concentrate population densities in the lowest-lying coastal areas after draining them of their storm surge-absorbing wetlands and estuaries. Make sure it's also the most active hurricane path on the planet. Bonus points for making sure other ...fast-growing regions have the opposite problem - NO water.
Step 2: Pump as much carbon and other climate destabilizing gasses from the geosphere into the atmosphere as possible.
Step 3: Turn as much permeable, cooling, green landscape into black, impervious pavement and rooftops as possible. Concentrate all stormwater runoff. Bonus points for mixing it with sewage when it rains really hard. Double bonus points for lawn. Triple bonus round for golf courses and shopping malls. Quadruple bonus points for destroying town centers in favor of strip development.
Trash in Yeader Creek (and "yes it looks like this every time it rains") Photo courtesy of Julie Perreault – Polk Soil & Water Conservation District
Step 4: Ensure all new development is built with total dependence upon active air conditioning. Bonus points for glass high rises with non operable windows - vertical greenhouses without, you know, the plants. Double bonus points for failing to put passive air cooling in nursing homes, hospitals and emergency shelters.
Step 5: Don't harvest or store any drinking water locally. Ensure total dependence on government emergency shipments of tiny bottles of water when none is available. Bonus points for polluting all surface waters so they can't be drank. Double bonus points for contaminating ground water aquifers.
Step 6: Rebuild and do it all over again. Bonus points for getting government grants. Double bonus points for growing the economy to attract more people to "hard hit" regions so that it will be even worse the next time around."
So, how do you think are we doing?
Watch for the next post in the Water Water Everywhere series as we look at real solutions for homeowners, farmers and anyone concerned about clean water.
Water Water Everywhere #4 - Real Solutions
Until then, Ben has a revision of his book The Resilient Farm and Homestead. You can hear him talk about it on Episode #3427 of the Survival Podcast and order it HERE or at Chelsea Green Publishing.
If you would like to help the people in NW Iowa you can donate and/or volunteer with-
A Zebra Swallowtail butterfly visited our job site last week. We have seen a few butterflies fluttering around this year, but not a lot. No Monarchs yet... There has been a good variety and a lot more bees though. Bees and wasps have been visiting our flowers at home for a while now, too. They are beautiful to watch, but also very important parts of our ecosystem!
Did you know that pollinators, like bees, butterflies, bats, birds, and more, are estimated to play a key role in one of every three bites of food we eat? Everything from berries to melons, apples and tomatoes, pumpkins, alfalfa that dairy and beef cows eat, even coffee rely on pollinators for pollination.
Earlier this season we had been joking that even though we were busy, we hadn't done a single rain garden installation yet. We had done some revamping of a couple older ones, an edible landscape for a commercial project, several large native plantings and a homestead orchard.
