Calling all Chicago gardeners....
Have you native plantings in your yard or do you maintain a traditional lawn? Do you think natives provide more benefit for the environment than lawns? Do you want to help test it? Join our innovate research program and put your garden to the test!
Have you native plantings in your yard or do you maintain a traditional lawn? Do you think natives provide more benefit for the environment than lawns? Do you want to help test it? Join our innovate research program and put your garden to the test!
The idea is simple: we are evaluating the role of
native plantings in improving soil health by measuring decomposition rates in
native gardens and on traditional lawns.*
We need your help by volunteering your native garden
OR your grassy lawn for this non-harmful, non-invasive, experiment.
The test is simple.
We will mail you a kit to install “cotton strips”** in your garden which
you will return to us at the end of spring (June 2013). The strips measure 5 inches by 10 inches and
are very easy to put in place.
At the end of the experiment we will provide a full
read out of the test and the full result of the competition between native
gardens and traditional lawns! Contact
us at: a.patrickus@gmail.com. This work is supervised by Dr Liam Heneghan
at DePaul University (lhenegha@gmail.com).
*Decomposition is the rate at which dead plant material decays.
**Cotton strip are a part of a novel technique for
measuring soil processes. A small piece
of cotton is inserted in the garden, retrieved after a few weeks and the loss
of tensile strength measured in the lab.
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ReplyDeleteDavid Bayel