3/01/24- lawn work party planning

n attendance: Kellie (notes), Kay, Robin, Vicky, Alex, Mary (near the end)

Topics: tree pruning/work, Lawn reseeding work party (Sunday 3/10 at 11am), need to purchase loppers, making people aware of unit 19’s yard 

Tree pruning:

Jorge and Robin pruned the satsuma plums on the common path. 

   Tobi and Alex pruned several trees in the east lot  including the fruit trees in the dog run, the tree next to Hannah and Steven’s parked car. (Dog run is all sprinklers, goal is to change it all to drip system eventually. )

   West lot needs more tree work rather than pruning, limbs are larger and require more equipment. Will postpone the planning of tree work party until we can have a discussion about what equipment we’re going to rent with people who are more familiar. 

Last meeting we identified several upcoming projects we want to tackle before or around April, including treework/trimming, lawn revitalization, water troubleshooting (probably several evenings) in April (water won’t be turned on for good until danger of frost has passed)

March is a good time for lawn reseeding and fertilizing

  What do we need: drought tolerant seeds (Vicky volunteered to look into this with the city/ slc turf trade 5 lbs for 8$ for 1000 sq feet per website), white clover seed or mini clover (Kellie will get some clover),  we have some donated fertilizer already in the workshop as well as a seed spreader. It would be a good idea to roughly measure the lawn to get an idea of how much seed we need.

  Do we need to aerate the lawn? We have hand-aerators but they compact the soil, what we need is a machine that cores vs spikes. We could rent one. Decided to do aeration next year instead. Also decided hand-aerators are not useful and anyone is free to take them out of the workshop to sell/donate.

Work party: spread seed, fertilize, trim the elm suckers/ do vinegar treatment, inspect stumps that were given vinegar treatment to see if it’s successful.

  Date: Sunday 3/10 at 11am

   Equipment needed: drought-tolerant grass seed, clover seed, fertilizer and seed spreader from workshop, loppers ( we don’t have any). 

    The landscaping budget sets aside about 200 for 3 loppers, and we need to purchase good quality ones. Are there any that we own that are non functional that can be repaired? We will need to maintain and sharpen them, and should invest in some sharpening files. Alex has a guide from Wasatch Community Gardens on good quality loppers and how to maintain them, she is willing to use $250 to purchase loppers and sharpening stones with the credit card. 

   Unit 19’s yard could use some love as it moves towards being sold/before the Cohousing open house. Things that could be done: remove plastic pots laying around, remove dead plant matter like leaves. We can send out reminders via email and atACM that people can help tidy up (Kellie will send a reminder email). We can help disseminate info about what spots around need attention and communicate that to the community instead of necessarily doing these things as a committee.