St Louis Chapter

Wrong Term, Wrong Tree
By now, most of you have probably read the piece in Sunday's Post Dispatch highlighting the original plans that Dan Kiley had for the Arch grounds. It is a worthy read that details why the initial concept was not fully implemented. Some members of the our Chapter's Executive Committee supplied background information for the article and were pleased with the way that it illuminated how the decades old design is embraced by the new plans submitted for the current competition.
If you read the piece closely, you know that Dan Kiley was referred to as something other than his established professional role. Eyebrows were raised at the use of 'landscaper' to describe Kiley.  Stephen Ibendahl, Chapter Vice-President, contacted Tim O'Neil, Post Dispatch reporter, to inquire about his use of differing terms.
O'Neil indicated that he meant no disrespect to the profession and chose to employ his journalistic license to avoid an overuse. "I simply didn't want to say "architect" twice within about four words in that particular sentence." explained O'Neil.
ETV thinks it is quite clear that Mr. O'Neil understands the distinction, his extensive research behind the article shows a deep appreciation for the evolving site that is the Arch grounds. If you've not read it yourself, please do; it draws on diverse sources and explains some history that even St Louis natives may be unaware of:
The idea was for a pastoral place amidst downtown bustle that would complement, not clutter, the glistening form rising above trees, lawns and ponds. There were quibbles over details, but today's 91-acre riverfront park is essentially what architect Eero Saarinen and landscaper Dan Kiley had in mind... "He loved working with Eero, and he told tales of no sleep and lots of gin," Meyer said. "Overall, the (Arch) grounds were pretty true to what he designed. He was proud of it. He wanted the broad sweep and the purity of it. For him, anything else was just decoration.

Get the Key to a Beautiful Lawn
Feeding plants and your lawn a nutritious diet of compost throughout the year is the key to the best lawn on the block! Top dressing your lawn with compost in autumn is key to making it the greenest on the block come spring. Top dressing, and industry secret among ground crews at golf courses, involves the direct application of a layer of compost and/or other organic material to grass. It's plain to see that with the help of St. Louis Composting and the Ecolawn Top Dresser, compost top dressing can become the core of your natural lawn care program.
This annual application of nutrient-rich organic material promotes healthy root structure by:
    ·    infusing soil with beneficial microbes and essential minerals
    ·    increasing soil aeration
    ·    improving drought resistance
    ·    lessening soil compaction
Top Dressing using STA-Certified Field and Turf Enhancer and the Ecolawn Top Dresser from St. Louis Composting improves soil structure. The addition of our Field and Turf Enhancer allows the soil to be more porous while furthering its water retention by up to 30% more and the development of new roots. By applying our compost with the Ecolawn Top Dresser you will stimulate the microbial activity in the soil which is particularly important for the health of the lawn.
Step-by-Step Guide to Top Dressing:
    ·    Core aerate the lawn, concentrating on the most heavily trafficked sections.
    ·    Apply a ½ inch layer of compost, using the Ecolawn Top Dresser
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The Ecolawn Top Dresser is a multi- purpose self-propelled applicator. It's easy-to-use design will help you carry out customized top dressing applications such as restoring your existing lawn or dressing your newly seeded areas. Using the Ecolawn Top Dresser and STA-Certified Field and Turf Enhancer is the first step you can take to create a professional, complete and ecological maintenance program for your lawn. Top dressing corrects several problems at their source and allows for healthy soil and grass. It will help to promote healthy root structure by infusing soil with beneficial microbes and minerals, increasing soil aeration, relieving compaction problems and improving drought resistance.

Despite the threat of a drenching, over 200 people attended the Hort Co-Op's Short Course, held yesterday at Meramec College. Participants enjoyed a range of presentations that contributed to earning CEU.  The highlight, at least for landscape architects, was the presentation of SITES for the Gateway Region by Stephen Ibendahl, Chapter Vice-President.  Stephen spoke for an hour to a full room - ETV counted 37 attendees - on the background and implementation of the SITES program.  An early poll of hands indicated that most everyone in the room was familiar with SITES, a very encouraging sign this early in its development. The pilot phase is underway now and its official launch is scheduled for 2012.
Stephen explained how SITES is a measurement of sustainability for landscapes that aims to complement LEED. Overall, the criteria for SITES is simply good design; the core principles taught in school though not always allowed to flourish in professional practice.
Category by category, the ratings were explained. Currently the highest achievable score is four stars, and Stephen was quick to encourage suggestions that would make the ratings system more user-friendly.
Also covered were the two current Pilot Projects underway in the St Louis area, Novus Headquarters Campus and the SWT Design Campus. Across the state in Kansas City is Project Living Proof, one of the rare residential entries to the program.
Several interesting topics were discussed during the closing questions session. The ability for SITES to be a marketing tool in its own right was brought up and the consensus was that, done properly, SITES would be an effective branding tool for new development. Also mentioned was the practice of incorporating elements of SITES into a project with the intention of relying on them to secure future funding. The Manchester Streetscape was used as an example; current plans make use of many SITES features including mitigating light pollution and methods to deal with stormwater.
The presentation offered extensive information for professionals who are interested in the evolution of the program. If you missed yesterday's lecture, there will likely be more opportunities in the near future to attend similar presentations; stay tuned! 

This past weekend ETV happened to be at the 1st annual LouFest in Forest Park; in addition to seeing fantastic performances by Jeff Tweedy and She & Him, ETV was pleased to see the sustainable practices that the festival was built upon.  With the help of some area organizations, LouFest was designed with an eye on reducing waste and maintaining a clean environment for attendees.  

Waste management at festivals can often be a daunting undertaking. Festival goers are often more concerned with their own entertainment and tend to overlook cleaning up after their consumption.  Overflowing garbage, contaminated recycling and unsightly litter is an unfortunate hallmark of large outdoor events.  ETV was pleasantly surprised to find, even late on the last day of the festival, that the grounds were not piled with refuse and recycling and trash receptacles were abundant and clean.  The tidy site was not entirely dependent on event staff playing garbage police; festival goes were engaged and subtly encouraged to be a part of the clean experience.  

Guest participation was due, in part, to the way that organizers highlighted the waste management practices underway.  Large recycling stations staffed by volunteers from St Louis Earth Day made it easy to deposit your refuse in the right place. The volunteers were not just there to direct but to let you know that the majority of what had just been placed into bins would be turned into compost. With the help of St Louis Composting, over 800 pounds of food waste was collected and on its way to helping grow the food for next year's LouFest.  All the vendors used only compostable paper products, making it a breeze to toss your plate after inhaling a sushi roll from The Drunken Fish.

ETV is pleased to report the success of LouFest and especially proud that one of our Silver Sponsors, St Louis Composting, played such an integral role in the process.  We did not know of their involvement in advance but took the opportunity to stop by the St Louis Composting booth for a chat.  Roy Gross and Ashley Bement were on hand to greet us and both were very encouraged by the positive feedback they had received from festival goers over the weekend:

"St. Louis Composting was pleased to be a part of the 1st Annual St. Louis LouFest. It was not only beneficial for us to be there to educate people about the benefits of composting and what it can do for your home garden and community gardens and landscapes but also to be able to divert all of the food waste generated at the event from landfills to our composting facility! We worked closely with LouFest organizers and St. Louis Earth Day Organization to make sure that all materials used at the event were either compostable or recyclable, helping to reduce the overall waste generated. St. Louis Composting was able to inform attendees that the plates they were eating their chicken and vegetable kabobs on would end up back in the garden as compost to help grow those vegetables next year!" 

Representative Russ Carnahan was presented with an Honorary Membership in the American Society of

  Landscape Architects by the St. Louis Chapter Trustee Hunter Beckham for his diligent efforts and support in Washington DC for the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS). In early 2001, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the National Park Service, and the Library of Congress entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that established the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS) to document landscapes that serve as tangible evidence of our nation’s heritage and development. HALS is a permanent federal program charged with recording historic landscapes in the United States and its territories. Historic landscapes vary in size from small gardens to several thousand-acre national parks. In character they range from designed to vernacular, rural to urban, and agricultural to industrial spaces. Vegetable patches, estate gardens, cemeteries, farms, quarries, nuclear test sites, suburbs, and abandoned settlements all may be considered historic landscapes. Like its sister programs, the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), HALS produces written and graphic records of interest to educators, land managers, and preservation planners.
Representative Carnahan accepted this Certificate at SWT Design, one of St. Louis’s two Pilot Projects for the Sustainable Sites Initiative. The Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) is an interdisciplinary effort by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin and the United States Botanic Garden to create voluntary national guidelines and performance benchmarks for sustainable land design, construction and maintenance practices.