Design Concept Alternatives

Design Alternatives

The Overstory Foodscapes

Key Elements

• Increased forest edge to buffer NW winter winds across

Cranberry Meadow. • Cranberry Meadow has a border of deciduous shade trees with 50+ foot spacing. • Three outdoor gathering spaces. • Vegetated swale along Bassett Brook Drive. • Common lawn and front yards are planted with a layered forest pattern. • Rose Field forest edge has an outdoor Quaker meeting space and an expanded community garden. • Forest edge is extended into most meadows. Some meadows are fully or partially allowed to return to forest, and deliberate reforestation occurs around the vernal pool in Mulberry

Meadow.

Assets

• High carbon sequestration potential. • Longest and most diverse forest edge of alternatives, creating high wildlife habitat value. • Greatest number of outdoor gathering spaces.

Constraints

• Slowest time to establish the plant palette. • May reduce valued views out to meadows. • Two-thirds of gathering spaces may be too far away for Inn residents

Key Elements

• Pollinator plant border along Cranberry Field. • Vegetated swale along Bassett Brook Drive. • Two outdoor gathering spaces. • Huckleberry’s hillside converted to an orchard. • Common lawn and front yards planted with native shrubs and potentially edible landscaping such as fruit trees and berry bushes. • Rose Field becomes a one-acre farm planted on contour. • Mid-woods meadow and Mulberry Meadow are managed with rotational grazing, the Florence Road meadow becomes an orchard, North Field becomes an intensively managed pollinator meadow.

Assets

• Highest food production potential. • Increases food sources for pollinators and other wildlife in addition to humans.

Constraints

• Most diverse and intensive management regimens. • Landscape may be too ephemeral to provide year-round color and visual appeal. • Rotational grazing and farms may require an independent farmer.

Lawns to Lupines

Key Elements

• Cranberry Field features a raised overlook into the meadow. • Vegetated swale along Bassett Brook Drive. • One outdoor gathering space, behind the Inn. • Huckleberry’s hillside and Wide Woods Trail entrance become pollinator meadows. • Common lawn and front yards are planted with stone and rock mulch, evergreen shrubs, and groundcover. • Rose Field includes a boardwalk to the nearby vernal pool, a native botanical walk around the perimeter of the field, and a gathering space and shade trees at the center of the field. • North Field, Mid-Woods, and Mulberry Meadows are partially reforested along edges; Florence Road meadow becomes a

“flagship” intensively managed pollinator meadow.

Assets

• High pollinator habitat value. • Maintains all views out and potentially enhances views. • Incorporates more educational elements.

Constraints

• Fewest number of gathering spaces. • Boardwalk will need NOI and may be expensive to install. • Front yard landscapes initially very expensive to install.