park Archives | Marek Landscaping

Plant of the Week: Calopogon tuberosus

Justine — Fri, 20 Mar 2020 16:29:49 +0000

Plant of the Week! This isn’t a spring-blooming plant, but we could all use some bright flowers right now. The Grass-pink is a native orchid found in high-quality bogs, fens, and wet meadows. It grows a single long, linear leaf and a raceme of 2-15 magenta (or rarely, white) flowers. It is a small but beautiful plant. Many pollinators visit the flowers, including bumblebees, halictid bees, beetles and butterflies. However, the flowers don’t provide the insects with any resources: instead, they trick them with pseudo-stamens. Bees are the primary pollinator because their weight on the flower causes the hinged lip of the flower to collapse into itself, attaching pollen on the back of the bee. If the bee makes the same mistake with another Grass-pink, the same mechanism will cause the pollen to contact the stigma, resulting in pollination. Start looking for the flowers in mid-June, but please don’t pick them! Grass-pinks are rare in some states as habitat loss and over-collecting have caused populations to decline.

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Plant of the Week! Wisconsin’s Hepaticas

Justine — Fri, 06 Mar 2020 16:14:17 +0000

Plant of the Week! It’s a little bit early now, but soon we will be seeing native ephemeral wildflowers emerging from last year’s leaf litter. One of the plants you might be lucky enough to encounter is Hepatica (Anemone acutiloba or A. americana). The two species here in Wisconsin are Sharp-lobed Hepatica and Round-lobed Hepatica, the main difference being the bluntness or “pointy-ness” of the three lobes of the leaf. The first thing you might notice about this plant, other than the beautiful delicate flowers, is how furry it is! Dense, downy trichomes cover the plant and are very noticeable as it first emerges. This protects the plant against the cold and wind. Another fascinating characteristic about this wildflower is how it reproduces: The capsule that holds the seeds also contains an oily structure that attracts ants. The ants take the seed capsules to their nests, essentially planting the seeds as they do. Start looking for this spring species in high quality woodlands next month.

Flowers can be white, light pink, or blue

The plants are densely covered in furry trichomes to help protect it against cold, windy weather.

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Plant of the Week: Claytonia virginica

Justine — Tue, 07 May 2019 15:06:38 +0000

Plant of the Week! Another pretty and fleeting wildflower that you may see right now is Claytonia virginica, Spring Beauty. A woodland flower, it can be found in dry to moist deciduous woods, sparsely wooded bluffs, and even urban situations, such as parks and cemeteries. It is a great choice for underplanting or naturalizing into a lawn. By mid-summer, both the flowers and foliage will have faded. Spring Beauty has its own specialist pollinator, the Spring Beauty Bee, Andrena erigeniae. This ground nesting bee feeds its brood on the pollen of Spring Beauties. To learn more about this bee, check out Bug of the Week!

Spring Beauties: Mining Bees, Andrena erigeniae

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Marek Recipient of The Daily Reporter’s 2014 Sustainable Commitment of the Year Award

Marek — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 15:36:54 +0000

September 22, 2014 – Marek Landscaping, LLC is proud to be the recipient of The Daily Reporter’s 2014 Newsmaker of the Year Award in the Sustainable Commitment category. The Daily Reporter is one of the top sources for news in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction industry in Wisconsin. We are honored by this recognition and want to take this opportunity to thank our clients, our colleagues, and our consultants for co-creating projects that ensure ecologically sound landscapes, habitat, trails, parks and rivers. For more information about the award program, click here.

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Awarded West End Park Conceptual Planning Project by City of Washburn

Marek — Wed, 18 Dec 2013 15:10:34 +0000

December 18, 2013 – Marek Landscaping, LLC was awarded the West End Park expansion conceptual planning project by the City of Washburn. The 27-acre park is located along the shores of Lake Superior in Bayfield County. The work will involve improving and expanding habitat, camping, park facilities, and overall integration of the site to the Lake...

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Three Bridges Park Grand Opening Festival in the Menomonee River Valley

Marek — Sat, 20 Jul 2013 14:57:55 +0000

July 20, 2013 – Milwaukee celebrated the opening of the 24-acre Three Bridges Park in the Menomonee River Valley. This site was formerly a wild rice marsh, turned rail yard, turned vacant brownfield. The park now boasts a mile of trails, three bike/pedestrian bridges, community gardens, native plant communities, river restoration, and wildlife habitat. Marek was part of a multi-discipline design team and worked on the remediation plan, landscape architecture, land restoration, stormwater management, rainwater harvesting, and riparian & bluff stabilization portions of the design. See our Projects section for more detail.

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Phoenix Award

Marek — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 14:25:19 +0000

The Menomonee Valley Industrial Center & Community Park project received the 2009 Phoenix Award for excellence in brownfield development and is recognized by the Sierra Club as “One of the Ten Best Developments in the Nation.” Marek Landscaping completed the landscape construction for the entire site, including the riverbank, native seeding, turf seeding, trees & shrubs, and 5-year maintenance. Marek also worked with the Landscape Architect to specify plantings that are native to Milwaukee County and on construction specifications. The project is one of the best examples of a successful native plant community establishment in an urbanized area.

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