Winter, Construction

Before establishing a prairie garden, we had to prepare the soil. As a campus lawn, the site was originally covered by a turf grass mix, primarily consisting of Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon), St. Augustine grass, and other groundcover perennials such a geranium, primrose. The lawn was regularly mowed at only a few inches.

With Rice Grounds, the construction process included the layout of the grid of plots and the removal of existing sod. Sod removal with a sod cutter proved to be an intensive process as the soils in this area are particularly dense clays. The sod was redistributed to other areas of campus.

Following sod removal, we laid out cardboard to suppress and solarize any unwanted turf grasses or herbaceous species and we applied several inches of compost.