The 7509 Penn Duplex is the result of a new collaboration between Botwin Commercial Development, el dorado architects, the Design+Make Studio at Kansas State University’s School of Architecture, and Studio Build.
The collaboration’s goal is to provide excellent affordable housing. It has quality design and materials in a modest footprint while still featuring amenities any new tenant would expect. Each unit is two bedrooms, one bath within 735 square feet of living space.
Doug has worked as consultant with K-State students to help them plan an amazing landscape design for their project. In addition to considering maintenance and site conditions, this tiny footprint amid bustling traffic in a dense urban neighborhood is packed with plants to maximize environmental impact. All alone it can’t do much, but together with the surrounding community where a nearby commercial building includes a green roof, the Waldo neighborhood can become another island of survival for many species!
“I’m not trying to recreate the ancient ecosystem. That is gone. I’m trying to create biodiversity.”
— Doug Tallamy, chairman of the department of entomology and wildlife ecology, University of Delaware
Black-eyed Susan
Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Little Gold Star’
The new industry standard – a terrific improvement over ‘Goldsturm’. This plant forms a bushy, short clump of rich green foliage covered with a dome of closely spaced, starburst-shaped, 2-2.5”, golden
yellow blossoms held just above the
foliage. Very well-branched scapes carry loads of flowers from midsummer through early fall. Over 80 flowers have been counted on a single plant, making this selection more floriferous than ‘Goldsturm’.
PROVIDES FOOD/HABITAT FOR
Great Spangled Fritillary, REGAL FRITILLARY, Silvery Checkerspot, American Snout
bee balm
Monarda ‘Balmy Purple’
A dwarf plant covered in deep purple blooms in summer. Excellent mildew
resistance on compact plants that grow only 24” tall. Heat and drought tolerant, flowers make great cuts.
PROVIDES FOOD/HABITAT FOR
nectar source for hummingbirds and countless species of bees and butterflies
butterfly weed,
milkweed
Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed)
Showy orange flower heads bloom in early summer and continue for a long period on 24-30” plants. Very tough heat and drought tolerate, plants will also grow in horrible clay soil. Fantastic planted with native grasses, Rudbeckias and other native
flowers.
Asclepias incarnata (Swamp milkweed)
Swamp milkweed sports lightly fragrant flower clusters from early summer through fall. Plants grow 3-5’ tall. Choose the pure native pink or white flowering selection called ‘Ice Ballet’. As the name suggests, this species is tolerant of poorly drained sites.
PROVIDES FOOD/HABITAT FOR
Black Swallowtail, Great Spangled Fritillary, Queen, Zebra Longwing,
Zebra Swallowtail, Variegated Fritillary, Gray Hairstreak , American Copper, Sleepy Orange, and most famously the sole larval food source for the
Monarch butterfly
smooth sumac
Rhus glabra
This native, deciduous shrub occurs on prairies, fields, abandoned farmland, clearings and along roads and railroads. A large, open, irregular, spreading shrub which
typically grows 8-15’ tall and spreads by root suckers to form thickets or colonies in the wild similar to staghorn sumac (R. typhina). Foliage has a fern-like look and turns to stunning shades of bright orange and red in fall. Female plants produce showy erect fruiting clusters up to 8” tall. Clusters contain numerous hairy, berry-like drupes which ripen red in autumn, gradually turning maroon-brown as they persist through
most of the winter.
PROVIDES FOOD/HABITAT FOR
winter food source for birds of many kinds and small mammals,
larval host plant for hairstreak butterfly and luna motH
little bluestem
Schizachyrium scoparium
True deep blue foliage and exceptional bronze-red fall color. Tolerates heat and humidity. Native to prairies, fields, clearings, hills, roadsides, waste areas and open woods from Alberta to Quebec south to Arizona and Florida. It was one of the dominant grasses of the tallgrass prairie which once covered the rich and fertile soils of central North America.
PROVIDES FOOD/HABITAT FOR
Crossline Skipper, Delaware Skipper,
many species of seed-eating birds
blue switch grass
Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’
Metalic blue leaves grow strictly upright. Never leans or flops, even in heavy rain. Pink tones in inflorescence. Fine specimen with yellow autumn color. Spread of 2-3’.
PROVIDES FOOD/HABITAT FOR
Northern Pearly-eye, Northern Broken Dash, Tawny-edge Skipper, Delaware
Skipper, Least Skipper, many species of
seed-eating birds
coneflower
Echinacea ‘PowWow Wild Berry’
An AAS Winner that differs from other
coneflowers in flower color, branching and
plant size. The incredibly vivid deep rose-purple flowers retain color longer.
This first year flowering perennial has
superior performance including a basal
branching habit that results in more flowers per plant. Expect rapid and uniform
flowering at a day-length of 14 hours. Reaching a mid-height of 20-24”, it will bloom continually without deadheading or grooming.
Echinacea ‘Pow Wow White’
Produces single white flowers with large golden cones atop 18-24” tall stems. The hardiest white we’ve found.
Echinacea paradoxa (yellow coneflower)
A 2-4’ yellow-flowering native. Like its cousins, flowers make great cuts,
butterflies are attracted to the blooms and birds appreciate the seed when cones are left to dry.
Echinacea pallida (Pale purple coneflower)
Easily grown in average, dry to medium, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. An adaptable plant tolerant of drought, heat, humidity and poor soils. Divide clumps when they become overcrowded, about every 4 years. Plants usually rebloom without deadheading. Freely self-seeds if at least some of the seed heads are left in place.
PROVIDES FOOD/HABITAT FOR
American Lady, Giant Swallowtail, Great Spangled Fritillary, Painted Lady, Pearl Crescent, Red Admiral, Silvery Checkerspot, Spicebush Swallowtail, Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Variegated Fritillary, Viceroy, Fiery Skipper, Gulf Fritillary, Sachem, Tawny-edge Skipper, many species of seed-eating birds
“When you realize that we’ve wiped out 50% of the Earth’s wildlife in the last 40 years, it doesn’t take complicated math to figure out that, if we keep cutting by half every 40 years, pretty soon there’s going to be nothing left.”
— Anthony Barnosky, executive director of the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve at Stanford University
Many of the species used in this plan are selections of native plants grown from cuttings to preserve characteristics more conducive to small spaces, including dwarf bee balm, coneflower and black-eyed susan cultivars. They offer the same value for wildlife with all the ornamental benefits humans hold dear.
