The City’s North Shore Channel Habitat Project moved forward this week with team visits to several work sites. Living Habitats, a Chicago-based landscape architecture firm, is providing overall design direction—starting by taking stock of current conditions in the Ladd Arboretum and across the channel in Twiggs and Harbert Parks.
The two-year project will add bird-friendly habitat to an 1,100-foot section of the channel bank running northeast from the Ecology Center to the existing Grady Bird Sanctuary. On the opposite bank of the channel, sections of Twiggs, Harbert, and one additional park (to be chosen next year with community input) will be cleared and replanted. There also will be a garden in front of the Civic Center that demonstrates ecological design principles, including layered planting—with tall trees, smaller trees and shrubs, and wildflowers used by birds and pollinators.
The project is funded by a grant from the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation’s Chi-Cal Rivers Fund. Paul D’Agostino, Environmental Services Bureau Chief, and Kumar Jensen, Environmental Project Coordinator, lead the project for the City of Evanston.
— Wendy Pollock
