LOVELAND, Colo. — Centerra, a Loveland community, boasts nearly 500 acres in common areas, and taking care of it is no easy task!
At Chapungu Park within the Centerra, there's a great green lawn that is manicured. The community also has native spaces with hardy, native-to-Colorado plants.
Native landscaping is dramatically less expensive to install and maintain than manicured areas. Installing native landscaping is usually one-third of the cost of manicured landscaping. Maintenance is about half of the cost of manicured landscaping and utilities are about one-twelfth the cost!
Centerra uses roadside test plots to execute necessary research and make incremental changes to large areas. Grasses planted along roadsides often face especially challenging conditions — long periods without rain in the summer, surrounded by concrete, and cold, dry conditions in the winter.
Thirteen different grass species were planted in test plots along an intersection between two major city arterial streets at the Centerra Chapungu Sculpture Park. From Buffalo grass to salt grass, the seeds were all studied over two years to determine which types of grasses can withstand the over-splash of the de-icer and salt treatments used during winter snow plowing. Ultimately, the Buffalo grass and Dog Tuff grass performed the best, requiring very little water and mowing maintenance.
Climate change is impacting the way they manage these spaces. Centerra dictates through the design guidelines a large portion of communal landscaping be native for the purpose of lower water use and lower maintenance impacts. It also limits individual home lots on the amount of turf.
Centerra is in talks about converting the mowers and maintenance equipment to electric, including the infrastructure for charging. Officials say Centerra will continue to explore how to support sustainability now and long into the future.