The upper 100 square foot flagstone patio follows a black locust plank boardwalk down the bluff to a 260 square foot covered terrace overlook. The overlook patio was constructed with a mixture of flagstone and black locust log “cookies”. The back retaining wall consists of black locust logs and the cedar log roof was covered in engineered soil with coir matting and planted with nearly 200 plugs of native grasses and forbs. Black locust stairs continue down the bluff from the overlook and descend to the covered boathouse. The boathouse was constructed of dry stack stone with a Douglas fir beam roof finished with custom copper shingles. The boathouse faces 500 square feet of flagstone patio and a custom fire pit with five large limestone rocks for seating.

Another fun and challenging aspect of this project was the rerouting of a natural spring on the property to create a recirculating water feature. Additionally, Marek utilized a steep slope restoration technique that uses a compost- based bio-engineered soil matrix with close to 50 species of native plant grasses, sedges, and forbs to increase initial stability, weed resistance, and early native plant germination.

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Marek Landscaping’s stewardship team has continued to provide services at the Milwaukee River’s East Bank to further manage and eradicate the invasive species that remain. In February 2021, we facilitated a community buckthorn removal event to help accelerate progress towards those goals and to encourage community involvement. Future work along the East Bank will continue to focus on invasive species management and will include planting of native grasses, sedges, forbs, and trees to enhance existing vegetative communities and wetlands.

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