Three years after the storm, a new landscape blooms
From staff reports
Three years ago, on Aug. 2, 2015, a derecho storm with hurricane-force, straight-line winds pummeled Glen Arbor, destroying forests, knocking out power and changed the landscape for a generation. Then the cleanup, the rebuilding and the landscaping began.
For her work on the “Bitter Sweet Lane” property on Glen Lake, local landscaper and gardener extraordinaire Cre Woodard recently won an award from the Michigan Nursery and Landscape Association (MNLA), which honors “those in the green industry that have demonstrated excellence, professionalism and responsible environmental standards.”
The storm ripped through the Glen Arbor landscape, twisting, breaking and uprooting thousands of trees and leaving the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and surrounding area deeply altered. According to Woodard, “the devastation particularly affected trees and gardens. These winds leveled and destroyed my client’s heavily wooded landscape, and their property was dramatically encircled in full-grown, wind-felled trees.”
The storm left her clients’ lakeshore cottage in full sun light. The old familiar landmarks related to family and history were ruined. When the shock wore off and the downed timber was cleared, the site revealed itself to have both challenges and opportunities. The particular challenge was to re-imagine the entire site from the ground up, and through landscape alone, to rebuild the connection to the “up north family cottage.”
Woodard was given a working timeframe of May 1 to Memorial Day 2016 to complete the landscaping project. The clients’ wish list, aside from privacy, recreation and beauty, also required plants and trees with the potential to develop into an authentic and resilient future lakeshore woodlot. They asked her to: reforest with trees and shrubs that captured the flavor of local plant communities; transform an unusable space at the guest room into outdoor living; provide space for a lawn; build a professional Bocce ball court; reconfigure the driveway for flow and privacy; knit the house into the site with architectural features; assure privacy while preserving views and usable space; incorporate foot-friendly paths and walkways and surround the house with lovely sturdy gardens.
“After the removal of stumps and roots, tons of displaced and decrepit flag stone, and restoring the soil structure, we finally arrived at a place of pure potential,” said Woodard. “Then we ignored the days of snow and sleet and got to work on planting and building in order to meet the deadline of Memorial Day Weekend.”
Woodard believes that green landscapes integrated into the community is paramount for the experience of both year-round residents and visitors to Leelanau.
“Our hope in creating landscapes in and around our towns and villages is to connect us to our place and to each other. We believe good design drives the perception of our ‘Up North’ setting and encourages positive interactions with the world and the people around us. Using indigenous trees and plant materials helps ensure that our landscapes move into the future and create sustainability for the spaces where we coexist with the nature.”
