Landscape Architect Articles

Green Office and Irrigation Demonstration Gardens08-12-13 | News

Green Office and Irrigation Demonstration Gardens

Super-Sod just completed construction of a one-of-its kind sustainable site in middle Georgia. The intention is that this site will serve as a smart water-use model and educational center, as well as a new sales center for the area,.

Drive up Sod Farm Road in Ft. Valley, Ga. and you'll be greeted by Super-Sod's new office for middle Georgia. It's a handsome dark gray building that's really a green construction. Company vice president Ben Copeland, Jr. moved ahead with the new office and surrounding gardens after a visit to Israel to study water use with a Georgia Department of Agriculture trade mission where he learned that, with a combination of old technology (cisterns) and new irrigation equipment, even a desert can bloom.

The customer parking lot is paved in Drivable Grass???(R)???AE????, a new sustainable product that combines special pavers and turfgrass to form a water permeable pavement. This system is a solution to water quality problems associated with runoff from impervious surfaces and it can greatly reduce the heat island effect.

Stormwater collection comes via butterfly roof and cisterns. A butterfly roof is a roof sloped toward itself to catch more rainwater than an ordinary roof. It catches rain drops efficiently, then directs the water into two enormous cisterns (16,900 gallons total) that will supply all the irrigation to the garden.

Georgia is blessed with rainfall, but the state has a rainfall collection and smart use problem. In the Irrigation Demonstration Gardens all the irrigation water will come from collected rain (and the gardens are not planted with drought-tolerant plants as a feature). This is not a risky situation – the system is designed to collect enough water to carry the gardens through the worst drought.

Efficient sprinkler heads, smart meters and timers, and irrigation mats that irrigate from below. Reducing evaporation (water loss during irrigation) is a goal and so is irrigating based on evapotranspiraton rates (the amount of water plants need based upon the weather).

The native Georgia clay is highly amended with Soil3 OMRI listed organic humus compost. It improves hard clay soil by building soil structure, increasing drainage, maintaining water holding capacity, and adding nutrients and beneficial soil microbes.