Turning the Page for Pollinators: Blogging for Pollinators

Seam direction: we learned to consider the predominant direction of the wind when layering plastic; with two seams on our site, we observed that the one that's less impacted by the wind held much tighter!

After two months, with some extreme heat periods as well as several downpours, the plastic has grown brittle and has begun to split in several places.

Knowing this stage of site prep is nearly complete, we didn't lay fresh plastic. Instead, we used what we had on hand to brace it in place for the final stretch.

The lesson here: leave some slack, use a little more sheeting than you think you need so the plastic can expand/contract with the weather. We pulled our sheets flush to the ground before anchoring them in place so when it was time to react to the weather, it had no choice but to split!

Life finds a way! Growth developed in all the border zones where we had used earth to secure the plastic. This was expected!

It will be interesting to see how deep the roots set: through the sheeting, or entirely within this mini ecosystem of the plastic border troughs? We'll soon find out!

Here we attempted to seal off this parking lot signage pole within our meadow site. It...didn't quite work. Some weather-resistant tape or other means of firmly securing the plastic to the pole (rather than a simple wrap job with packing tape as we tried) may have done a better job.