Brian Hanes, the landscape architect who designed this project, who
lives in Cedar Park, said this was caused by a patch of dry weather.
Grass naturally goes dormant -- and yellows -- during droughts. And
indeed, after last night's heavy rain, much of that yellowing had
re-greened today.
But the sod is not a monoculture. It contains a mix of different
species, which may react differently in specific locations.
Hanes is the professional in charge, and he doesn't think Roundup is
causing this phenomenon. For us laymen, this makes sense as well.
Roundup was applied evenly across the park, so it shouldn't cause patchy
damage.
Hanes emphasized that newly-aid sod is still fragile. It needs to be
babied during its first year. Park-lovers will be working to spread that
word. Ray (that's "University Citoyen's" real name, for newcomers), if
you want to organize an organic-compost movement for the park, that
would be wonderful! Please coordinate with Friends of Clark Park and
we'll explore if this is workable.
Dandelions or clover were not included in the new sod which was laid
down, so it's unlikely you'd expect to see them this soon. Don't worry,
all you weed-lovers, they'll enter soon enough by themselves; you don't
need to spend half a mill to plant them.
You repeat a foolish error, Ray, when you babble about "Penn's UCD".
Hanes was paid entirely by Friends of Clark Park, which has run a
multi-year campaign to come up with the $75,000 needed just for his
blueprint. The work was approved and contracted by the City of
Philadelphia. While UCD is one of maybe 10 helpful partners on the Clark
Park Committee, it played a minor role at best in the Park A
Revitalization Campaign; your employer Penn's role was, if anything,
smaller.
In the meantime, Roundup foes should quit focusing on Clark Park, where
its use has ceased. They should turn instead to Woodland Building Supply
at 47th & Woodland, which sells the same stuff to some of your
neighbors, day in and day out. So if you believe Clark Park poses a
"Roundup hazard" from a one-time use during construction, your neighbors
pose an even-greater hazard, no? You should ferret them all out and
organize a campaign against them.
Looking forward to that tea, though -- seriously.
-- Tony West
On 6/18/2011 11:36 AM, UNIVERSITY*CITOYEN wrote:
yes! I noticed this recently and wondered about that strange
yellowing, because that sod had been recently laid and everything was
green, and then suddenly the weird swaths of perfectly uniform yellow
appeared, that didn't follow the pattern of the sod pieces -- and this
dead yellow appeared after plenty of rain had just fallen. and what's
so odd is that when you look at it from above, you see perfectly green
patches of grass right next to patches of completely dead yellow grass
-- it's not even a gradual shift...
also, no dandelions or clover, from what I can see from the bridge...
so roundup is causing that?
seems consistent with the practice of applying roundup at the
beginning of new landscaping operations; the stouffer triangle on
woodland walk is also relatively recent (just last year?)
- - - - -
if penn's ucd is indeed resorting to poisons, that is inconsistent
with penn's stated commitment to sustainability:
http://www.upenn.edu/sustainability/
perhaps neighbors can investigate whether or not penn's ucd is aware
of harvard, and look into organic compost teas for our clark park -- I
haven't heard mention of this compost tea in this discussion, I first
heard about it on this old house:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/24/garden/24garden.html
..................
UNIVERSITY*CITOYEN
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