GO Home

March 25, 2010

Soil Management

To prepare the site for construction, topsoil is removed from the locations of the building and driveway footprints and from any areas of the site that will be impacted by construction equipment, vehicular circulation, crew parking, and on-site construction staging activities. This topsoil is then stockpiled in low berms scattered throughout the site, generally along the interior of the limit-of-work line, which helps discourage random vehicular access to areas outside the construction limit of work. [1] The berms are seeded with a cover crop of winter rye and mulched with straw to prevent erosion and retain moisture until the cover crop is established. The cover crop and mulch keep the stockpiled soil healthy, preventing desiccation and wind erosion, and maintaining essential microbial activity until the soil can be re-placed.

In many areas of the post-construction GO Home landscape, we plan to re-establish the field vegetation. Stockpiled soil was removed with the root systems of the existing grasses intact so where soils could be re-laid during the first season, the existing roots (still alive under the mulch and cover crop) re-sprout and the field re-grows. Healthy stockpiled soil will also retain the ‘seed bank’ of the pre-construction landscape, further aiding our efforts to integrate our landscape design with the surrounding ecological framework.

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[1] There are differing viewpoints on the efficacy of stockpiling soil in one large berm versus multiple small berms. Smaller berms mean more of the surface area of the stockpiled soil is exposed to the air, which means plants and micro-organisms will survive. However, multiple berms mean that a larger surface area of potentially undisturbed soil is covered.  On the other hand, transporting soil in a dumptruck  from the far corners of the site to create one large soil pile results in unnecessary, often extensive compaction of otherwise undisturbed soils. As is so often the case in landscape, the best answer is ‘it depends….’.

 

TAGS:  construction footprint  construction staging  landscape construction  soil management