Open Space Advisory Board Agenda and Packet 2022 02 09

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Open Space Advisory Board Minutes December 8, 2021 Page 4 of 9 Staff is hoping that neighbors could help with the maintenance, with little training. Steve said that the initial Dutch Creek site needed surprisingly little irrigation to establish. Steve will include some education material about the pocket prairies into the open space webpage redesign and will hopefully do some education at the sites themselves. He hopes the pocket prairie program will ultimately increase interest in native plants and larger -scale restoration projects on Open Space properties themselves. Charles asked if the hope is to reseed larger areas from the pockets. Steve suggested it is hard to image the natives out -muscling competitive invasive species, like smooth brome, without active help. David asked if this is a project that fits into the Open Space charter. He pointed out that there are some people who do not think that the city should be spending money to put plants on open space. Steve says that the Open Space mission statement talks about restoring land, so he thinks this project does fit into the mission. He thinks part of the problem is that a prairie ecosystem is subtle, and people don't always notice the current levels of damage. David asked about Steve's cost estimates. Steve cautioned that the initial Dutch Creek site was somewhat unique. For example, it necessitated timber borders, but that was due to the fact that it was located on an intersection during a redesign to address social trails and staff were worried about encroachment. He also said they learned a lot during that project, so future pockets could be different. Laura commented that she loved this project. She suggested that the Louisville community gardens might be a rich resource for finding knowledgeable and enthusiastic volunteers. She commented that Steve's species list seemed biased towards forbs (non -grass species). Steve replied that he had intentionally tilted his species list toward forbs to demonstrate there is beauty in the native plant palette. He added that this is also why staff had used container stock rather than seed (to get the biggest bang for the buck). Steve said the forbs did fill in the land well and that grass seed is cheap to further fill in later. He said it was worth studying how the sites change over time, as grasses are more competitive and may ultimately crowd out forbs. Laura expressed some concern about public expectation management: full prairie restoration would probably not be as flowering and diverse as the pockets. But she thought the program's emphasis could be on providing a high diversity, high value areas for pollinators and birds. Ember said that the since some open space areas are classified for "preserve," restoration work there would probably skew more towards grass. All the currently proposed pocket prairie sites are zoned as either "other" or "visitor." Which provides staff the most flexibility in selecting the plant palette. Jessamine asked the public if there are any comments. The public had none. Jessamine thought the proposal was very thoughtful and well done. Peter said he wanted to support the program and the concept, but doesn't want the board's approval to lock staff into strict, absolute wording.