Regeneration of Ecosystems in Depleted Urban Settings
Sites compacted by heavy equipment over time with no topsoil and a depleted ecosystem are a common starting point for us. Because we are involved in ecological planning and the earlier phases of site establishment, we are most concerned with rebuilding soil health and starting with plants that are hardy and tolerant of variable conditions. We often begin by seeding cover crops such as Crimson clover, hairy vetch and milky oats. The clover family plants don’t do a lot for soil texture/organic matter but they fix nitrogen and provide for pollinators. Milky oats stabilize eroded soil and produce excellent medicine for people. Buckwheat can be quickly established in summer. Johnny’s Seeds has some excellent cover crop mixes. Since we like to establish trees early on, the cover crops can be managed around trees, especially fruit trees as good companions indefinitely.
Next we recommend planting more opportunistic perennial species that will quickly establish and tolerate harsher conditions. In the Southeast, Mountain mint, Sunchoke, Comfrey, Cutleaf Coneflower and lots of the meadow plants: Yarrow, Milkweeds, Echinacea will establish and spread in marginal soils. These plants improve soil quality, encourage biodiversity and begin to regenerate the ecosystem.
After some years, the ecosystem is more biodiverse and there is a measure of soil health, we can begin to edit some of the more aggressive species that helped establish the site. We can then add in some of the less tolerant and more sensitive plants. In a food forest in North Georgia this might be adding in some woodland medicinals, such as: goldenseal, American Ginseng, Bloodroot, Mayapple and Yellowroot.
In this sense, we aren’t engaged in ecosystem restoration as much as regeneration. True restoration requires a dedication to plants strictly native to the locale, which require a more established ecosystem. We account for the seriousness of the degradation and focus on plants that can meet these challenges.
