Page 17 - doi_landscapemaintenance1998

DEFINING OBJECTIVES

To ensure that time is well spent in developing a Preservation Maintenance Plan, it is impor-
tant to have clearly defined objectives for its purpose, scope and level of detail. Once these
objectives are defined, they may be summarized in a written introduction for the Plan. Below
are several considerations.

A. Preparing and using a Preservation Maintenance Plan

It is essential to determine how a Preservation Maintenance Plan will enhance current mainte-
nance operations. The scope of information and the level of detail required is largely deter-
mined by the people who will be using and be involved in the development of the plan. One
strategy is to create a work group that includes maintenance staff and historic landscape
preservation specialists with a designated leader. It is imperative that maintenance staff play
a major role in the development of the plan because they will ultimately be referring to it,
using it, adding information, and recording work completed. Other professionals likely to be
involved in the development of the plan could include site managers, maintenance supervi-
sors, a landscape historian, landscape architect, horticulturist, carpenter, engineer, mason,
archeologist, and ecologist depending on the features at the property. A diverse group ensures
that all concerns, ranging from field maintenance techniques to historic character, are addressed.
Once information is assembled into a plan, all staff should become familiar with its
contents and encouraged to add information, particularly in the section that contains feature
data and record keeping. These records will be used in the future by maintenance managers
and historians to understand how the landscape and its features have changed over time.

B. Preservation maintenance versus standard landscape maintenance
A site manager typically sets landscape maintenance priorities based on the goals and func-
tions of a property. For example, maintenance priorities at a corporate headquarters may call
for a manicured landscape that welcomes clients, whereas the maintenance priorities at a his-
toric site may focus on the preservation of historic materials and character of the landscape.
The highest priority for preservation maintenance is to preserve and protect historic authentic-
ity while standard practices focus on aesthetics, cost effectiveness, and contemporary tech-
niques and equipment (Figure 4).
For preservation maintenance operations to be effective, daily maintenance operations
may require precise instructions, such as appropriate height to trim a hedge (Figures 5, 6, 7).
Long-term preservation maintenance projects require thoughtful planning and documenta-
tion, such as retaining a historically significant view, resurfacing roads or walks with a particu-
lar aggregate, perpetuating specimen plants by propagation, or preserving the appearance of a
meadow by managing certain grass species. Finally, and most importantly, all preservation
maintenance practices must ensure that historic features and potentially significant features
and materials are not inadvertently altered or lost.

C. Maintenance operations and the preservation planning process for a historic landscape
The process of acquiring, stabilizing and treating a historic landscape is referred to as the land-
scape preservation process. The process consists of two major facets of work, preservation
maintenance and preservation planning. Preservation maintenance is the act of caring for a
specific feature, area or landscape by protecting, stabilizing, and repairing it on a routine or

9