Grand Award Recipient

HERNDON, Va., October 1, 2009 — The Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) is proud to announce the recipients of PLANET’s annual 2009 Environmental Improvement Awards.

This year marks the program’s 40th anniversary. Awards Committee Chair Will Spiegelberg, CLP, Spiegelberg Landscape Design, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, exclaims, “It is encouraging to the entire green industry to see such excellence. Congratulations from all of us at PLANET.”

The awards program, which is open to only PLANET members, reflects the association’s commitment to creating and preserving the beauty of the landscape and is designed to reward independent landscape, lawn care, and interior plantscaping professionals who execute superior projects.

“The quality of the submittals was overwhelming in many realms,” says Spiegelberg. Most notably he mentions: “The imagination of the designers and architects to bring clients’ dreams to two-dimensional plans, the knowledge of those involved in making the dreams workable, the skill of all those who brought the two-dimensional plan to three-dimensional reality and life, and the care of those who have maintained these dreams after they have become a reality to ensure their well-being.”

Project Description

Landings at the Glen is located along a busy road and railroad throughway at Lehigh Avenue and Chestnut in Glenview in the prestigious 'Glen' area. The front of the property has a common area composed of 3 retention pond spaces they must maintain. The initial installation of landscaping of this area was composed of native pond edge prairie plants, a stone border and a mass of non-native deciduous and evergreen trees . The association came to us with the dilemma of difficulty of maintenance and poor aesthetics to the front of their property. They also wanted some sound and visual screening from the high traffic of Lehigh Avenue. The non-native plants were not thriving and the prairie installation had failed, with an abundance of invasive weed species.

We prepared a design and plan to install, separate and transplant selective non-native plants to the border of the retention band from the native area below. We also provided a program of maintenance to restore the prairie area and steward this space into an efficient and attractive erosion and ecologically responsible water edge. In April of 2006 the project was approved by The Village of Glenview, Illinois Appearance Committee and work was initiated. The prairie area is being stewarded and this year we had our first successful controlled burn.

The upper non-native section was widened with RTF hardy and drought resistant turf grass and a select group of existing trees were transplanted away from the prairie. Serbian and Black Hills spruce were planted for sound and visual screening along the Lehigh border. Beds of natural type perennials, such as ornamental panicum, miscanthus, rudbeckia herbstonne, nepata, gallardia, helliopsis, yarrow and granite boulders as accents were added.

Goose population is reduced, erosion is controlled and the aesthetics are improved.