Landscaping
In 1992 six goals were established to guide the stewardship of Spring Island:
Landscaping on Spring Island should not be thought of as added beautification, but rather as another part of the home and the Island. Like the home itself, the landscape can create outdoor rooms with natural screens for walls, with trees and trellises forming roofs. Recreational facilities should be extensions of the home that are designed as such from the outset. All drives, walks, walls, parking and garages should be viewed as an integral part of the home and homesite and be made part of the unique design. Preferred is a natural garden, not suburban or finely manicured (for example, yaupon, wax myrtle, sparkleberry and sassafras growing together under an oak and pine overstory). Also acknowledged are homeowners who are horticultural enthusiasts who may want a more structured garden immediate to the home, leaving the natural setting beyond so that the formal garden fits inconspicuously into the Spring Island nature preserve. The site plan and landscape design should be conceived with these principles in mind:
For the cottage sites, a garden should reinforce the sense of place of its neighborhood. Unlike the larger Estate Sites within the nature preserve, Cottage lots do not have nature curtains (landscape buffers that hide the houses from view and preserve wildlife corridors). Instead homes are seen from the road and have filtered views from neighboring lots. Plantings or existing vegetation should be managed to provide privacy and smaller scale wildlife habitats. Additional plantings might be required by the HRB to screen the house from view. The cottage gardens should reinforce the sense of place of their surroundings. They are not simply surrounded by the "wilds" of the nature preserve like the larger Estate Sites. Instead, their context might be a horse pasture, a manicured sports garden, a maintained orchard, a cultivated field, or a clipped golf course fairway. As a result, their design can be more structured.
On predominantly wooded estate lots, the nature curtain setback corridor is 50’ from the property line at the road and 25’ from each side property line. Only selective cutting may take place within this setback. Underbrushing or clear cutting is not permitted. The nature curtain setbacks along the side property lines end 75' from the edge of the river, marsh, pond or golf course (the amenity side). This area can be part of the "Vistas" (see guidelines on "Vistas" within this section). This offset from the edge of a site amenity allows flexibility in locating the selective framed views. An owner may request approval for selective cutting of small openings in the nature curtain. The HRB will review the request submitted with the landscape plan in the approval process. Approval may be granted after the home is framed if the purpose of selective cutting is to increase air flow, to remove competing understory from specimen trees or shrubs, to remove noxious plants such as poison ivy, or to replace a monoculture of plant species with plantings that improve the wildlife habitat and plant diversity. Even in wooded areas, the addition of native screen planting between the home and adjacent lot lines may be needed to enhance or establish a nature curtain. (See Nature Curtain Management). On Estate Sites with an existing open field or where woods and fields meet the nature curtain becomes a planting strategy unrelated to property lines. A planting plan would be developed which is tied to the siting of the house and would include the addition of vegetation to create an effective screen for the home. This may mean siting the home discreetly behind an existing hedgerow or near a stand of existing trees for scale, then adding trees and shrubs to create a filtered view of the home from neighboring lots and thoroughfares. These screen trees, when placed properly, could also have the additional function of shading the house or the site. The landscape plan for each homesite should reinforce the Land Management Plan being implemented by the Spring Island Trust for the rest of the nature preserve. Each lot is a part of the ecosystem of Spring Island, and the manner in which each lot is “managed” or landscaped will play a significant role in the preservation of this sense of place. Every property should be viewed as a whole with the goal of creating a land management plan that provides biodiversity.
A preferred alternative to lawn areas that require significant amounts of water are mulched planting beds. Mulch must be organic material such as shredded aged wood mulch, compost, or pine straw. Mulch covers and cools the soil, minimizes evaporation, reduces weed growth, improves soil composition as the organic material decays and helps to reduce soil erosion. For the best results, mulch should be applied two to three inches deep. Mulch can be purchased commercially. A contractor can be hired to grind on site the tree debris created when the homesite is being cleared for construction. This fresh, coarse mulch can be used to surface paths or driveway. Shredded mulch should be stockpiled to age and later used to mulch planting beds. Both of these recycling practices eliminate the addition of debris to the landfill.
The landscape plan for HRB review and approval should address not only introduced landscape materials, but also how the existing woods or fields will be managed. Land management practices such as disking, mowing, selective tree thinning, undisturbed successional areas and, in old fields, the option of planting a seasonal wildlife crop, should be identified. Controlled burning is not permitted. The plan should create a mosaic of one, two and three year successional stage vegetation along with undisturbed areas. Mowing is the best practice where burning cannot be done. It is a manageable method of maintaining a mosaic of different aged plants as the understory vegetation. Selective tree thinning is used to alter the species composition and density of the tree canopy. Undisturbed successional areas: Massed areas should be left untouched to provide areas for feeding, breeding, nesting and resting for animals. Snags are dead or dying trees. If they are not a hazard to the home or drive they should remain. Standing snags provide a food source for woodpeckers. They often have cavities that are nesting places for birds and animals. Trees that have fallen are also good cover for animals and are an important part of the natural process of soil regeneration. Bird Boxes: If your homesite does not have several snags you could introduce homes for cavity nesters. The Mobley Nature Center library has books that identify the type of box for the bird that may be in your type of habitat and how to build it. Water: Existing ponds, low spots and ditches that are occasionally wet, bird baths or small garden pools and fountains provide another creature comfort for birds, butterflies, mammals and amphibians. Water features and low areas containing stagnant water are potential breeding grounds for the mosquito population. Plant low areas with vegetation which is conducive to dragonfly breeding and nesting. Water features should be incorporated into the landscape maintenance program. Keep water pumps running. Designing water features so that they can be drained is also a viable option. Small pools and birdbaths should be routinely cleaned when in use and put away when the home is not being used. |
