Laurel Valley Soils

High-quality compost products since 1979

Longwood Gardens Reimagined: It Begins with the Soil

suzanne

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Laurel Valley Soils is thrilled to share the exciting news that we are producing the planting soil medium for the Longwood Gardens Reimagined project.

The soil will be installed in the new conservatory. It is humbling to be part of this iconic once in a lifetime project; a local treasure our community is proud to share with the world.

 

Sure, we are located just a short way down the road from Longwood Gardens, but that’s not why we were awarded the project.  It was the 25 years of putting in the work every day to build the knowledge base and expertise required to qualify for a project of this caliber.

Last year we partnered with Bancroft Construction and BR Kreider & Son, Inc. to provide our Horticultural Compost as a component of the amended soil produced for the new allée which connects Longwood’s original conservatory with the new conservatory. 

 

Mixing onsite, B.R. Kreider blended reclaimed topsoil that had been excavated from the construction site with coarse sand and our Horticultural Compost.

The blend ratio had to be precise and Kreider used loaders with bucket scales to measure the ingredients down to the pound.

In a few weeks, at our facility in Landenberg, PA, we will commence blending the new conservatory’s interior soil.  It has been a long process of sampling and testing the individual mix components, and then creating test blends of the complete mix to ensure conformance with the specification. 

This custom blend consists of various ratios of specialty sand, pine bark, peat moss, and reclaimed Longwood Gardens topsoil.  We will be working once again with Bancroft Construction along with soil and plant installer, ambius. 

While we are excited to get underway, the production of this technically challenging mix will occur in the midst of our busiest time of the year.   However, it wouldn’t be fun or rewarding if it wasn’t pushing us to continually improve our game.  We are proud of our hard working and dedicated team members, and we can’t wait to see the finished product when Longwood Reimagined opens on November 22, 2024.

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Anywhere? Even an Asphalt Lot in the Middle of the City?

Laurel Valley Soils produces compost and specialty amended soils for any conceivable type of green project.  We have found that every project has its own uniqueness, whether it be the type plantings, the size of the project, installation demands or site conditions.

The U School project fit the latter.  Located on an asphalt lot in the food desert of North Philadelphia, the U School built a beautiful and productive food growing education garden.

A competency-based school designed to change Philadelphia youth’s college and career outcomes, not only challenges educational norms but is now challenging horticultural norms.

Currently only 18% of Philadelphia high school students make it to their 2nd year of college.  By encouraging young people to create high quality projects while also giving ownership over their learning, the U School offers students the opportunity to become truly independent learners, while they engage in a challenging college-preparatory curriculum.

We Love. We Dream. We Do.

The U School has quite a vision statement – and it fits perfectly with this project.  It would be a dream to grow plants on an asphalt lot in the middle of the city, right?

 

Tom Johnston, Principal at Think Green LLC has entered the chat.  By his company’s name, you can probably guess what happened next as the DREAM became the DO. 

The team created raised gardens on top of the asphalt lot using Laurel Valley Garden Soil, which is a blend of 70% Premium Compost and 30% Native Soil.  This special blend provides the soil structure, organic matter, beneficial microbiology, and organic nutrients nourishing plants need to grow and flourish.  And when Mother Nature forgets to rain, there are always sprinklers!

 

Anna Herman is the Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Management Educator for the U School.  She is a big believer that familiarity breeds comfort.  Introducing her students to growing food opens up a whole new world to her city dwellers.  Many of these young adults experience planting, growing and tasting their harvest for the first time, as well as seeing the various pollinators that have moved in to help with the project.

The U School contributes their bounty to food sharing programs, including fresh pantry meals, and a free “farm stand” type school-based food bank that the students run within the community.   

This project is part of the USDA Sponsored People’s Garden Initiative which focuses on growing healthy food to support a resilient, local food system, teaching sustainable growing practices, and nurturing a habitat for pollinators and wildlife, while providing greenspace for students, teachers and neighbors to gather, reflect, enjoy and LOVE.

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We Strived for an A+… Did We Get There?

So why does it matter? 

 “In the past, we have asked one thing of our gardens: that they be pretty. Now they have to support life, sequester carbon, feed pollinators and manage water.” 

— DOUG TALLAMY, Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware and author of Nature’s Best Hope: A new approach to conservation that starts in your yard 

As we reflect on 2022, we ask ourselves:  How do we define a successful year? If we had to score ourselves, what would our report card look like? The answer is simple – and can be measured in the value of the landscapes and crop production our customers have created and enhanced with the products we produce. We measure success through improved soil health, water conservation, landscape plantings and carbon sequestration. All this combines to create sustainable environments which promote thriving, living ecosystems. 

Water Retention Capacity of Compost and Soil Products Installed in 2022: 

Compost Products:  

Over 9 million gallons of water can be retained per rain event by landscapes amended with our compost products including Premium Compost, Horticultural Compost, TurfDress, Cyclone Compost, Aged Compost and Fresh Mushroom Compost.

All Blended Products Combined: 

Over 8 million gallons of water can be retained per rain event by installations of our Enriched Topsoil, TurfSoil, Planting Soil, Bio-Soil/Stormwater Soil, Garden Soil, Greenroof Soil and Custom Blended Amended Soils.

For context, the total of all products installed has the capacity to conserve enough water to fill more than 1,200 fifteen-thousand-gallon swimming pools in a single rain event.

Trees Planted:

Our customers installed over 500 trees in urban environments alone using our Planting Soil which is specifically designed for urban forestry.
The value of trees is exponential. Besides the importance of beautifying human living environments, trees clean the air, sequester carbon, reduce radiant surface temperatures, capture water, and provide important living ecosystems. 

Vegetable Production:

840,000 pounds of vegetable production capacity was installed by customers who built new food gardens with our Garden Soil. According to the USDA, these vegetables will in turn provide the plant-based nutrients required for 3,360,000 balanced meals. Compounding the value of this stunning figure is the fact that many of these gardens service communities that traditionally lack access to fresh healthy vegetables.  

Gratitude:

We think these numbers are pretty amazing – an A+ on the report card!
We recognize that the goodness our products provide is only realized when you, our awesome customers, install them.  So as we reflect on these achievements with gratitude, we take this moment to say a humble thank you to all our customers (retailers and end users) who do the heavy lifting by creating these beautiful, sustainable environments that we all love and benefit from.

© 2022 Laurel Valley Soils. A subsidiary of Laurel Valley Farms, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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