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An answer regarding the weeds at Gardner MA Elementary School
The Gardner Elementary School Finance Sub-committee met on August 16, 2023 to discuss and approve various items relating to the school. The subject of the weeds came up.
Citizen Steve Rockwood stated, “A couple of things have come up in the community, and one of them was why the outside property looks so bad.” Dr. Mark Pellegrino responded, “Actually, it’s a good question to answer and publicly because it’s a question out there. Can someone succinctly address that?” Kristian Whitsett agreed to answer the question stating, “Are there specific items are concerns?” Steve Rockwood responded, “….it has to do with the landscaping and the fact that there are, let’s call them weeds, growing everywhere, sort of out of control, and people think that looks lousy…”
Kristian had a lengthy response. “It’s a good question and a bit of a complicated answer in that, well, it’s a large site,so different portions of this site are going to be treated differently. In general.I guess I’ll start off by saying that the weeds got out of hand, and the design team was not very happy with it. It was an issue with the weeds getting out of control during the last growing season, the contractor not quite being ready to start weeding and watering. At the time when we all expected that that would happen. They were managing some of the other portions of the project. And just couldn’t get to that scope. So we’re right now approaching a fall growing season, and our landscape architect has been out there quite a bit recently, working with the contractor and their subs, and they are doing a much better job of leading an effort now. In anticipation of that fall growing season, we’ll be planting a lot of things. Down towards the Pearl Street entrance, there’s a wetland replication area, and the Conservation Commission Commission is quite interested in how that process goes out, what seed mix they use, how it’s dispersed. And so we’re working on that with the contractor right now. So I think that area down there will look a lot better in the coming. In the coming months. so I think, in general,on kind of, like, maintenance, upkeep, and how the site in general looks. I would say that that’s the overarching issue, is that we just didn’t have time last year. And a contractor didn’t have time last year. And we’re making much more of a considered effort right now. Before the fall growing season, which we’re happy to see. And took quite a bit of pressure from the design team. To achieve those results….So certainly the massive weeds that we’re seeing, you know, a few months ago, that’s not the unkept idea that we’re striving for. But at the same time, I just want to, you know, put it out there that it was envisioned as a school in the woods. And some of the approaches of the planting were more kind of native in approach, and not just kind of a manicured, high maintenance area throughout the site. “
Kristian went on to explain that the City and School Department aren’t being asked to keep it up because it’s still a construction project. He also stated, “also, the plantings, once they are accepted by the landscape architect, they have have a one year warranty period. So even after, the site’s looking finished, the contractor will still be involved to some degree.”