Our 30-acre parcel on the southwest edge of Ann Arbor is surrounded by active, fallow or legacy farm fields, and barns, silos, hedgerows and dirt roads, placing us in a Rural Agriculture Zone according to LBC guidelines.
Our land comprises old farm fields and hedgerows, with rolling topography of 3–30% slopes, and a small intermittent stream flowing across the west end. The prior monoculture farming practices exhausted the land’s fertility, using up the soil and exposing it to serious erosion.
Historical records indicate that before its use for agriculture, this land was an oak-hickory savanna. Our plans focus on reinterpreting the native oak-hickory savanna, restoring ecological health to the land, increasing biodiversity and creating wildlife habitat.
The courtyard and south terrace gardens are populated with native plants, bushes, trees, vines and vegetable plants. All plantings serve to feed people, pollinators and soil, with no turf grass anywhere.
Our habitat restoration work is described here.
To meet the Imperative for Habitat Exchange, we made a donation toward a conservation easement acquisition sought by Legacy Land Conservancy – a Girl Scout camp on Wamplers Lake in southeast Jackson County, Michigan, with 70 acres (28 ha) of wetlands and 40 acres (16 ha) of forest.
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