Page 18 - doi_landscapemaintenance1998

PRESERVATION MAINTENANCE STANDARD MAINTENANCE

High Priority
- safety issues - safety issues

- protect and preserve historic - improve aesthetics
materials and features
- support property operations/current
- perpetuate historic character use

- support property operations and - encourage lower cost maintenance
current use by using new techniques,
equipment, materials
- use historic methods and
materials - protect and preserve historic
materials and features
- encourage lower cost
maintenance - perpetuate historic character

- improve aesthetics
Low Priority

Figure 4: Priorities for landscape preservation maintenance versus standard landscape maintenance.

cyclic basis so that the historic character is not compromised or lost. Preservation planning is
the process of researching, documenting, and deciding how to treat the landscape. Preserva-
3
tion maintenance operations begin upon acquisition of a property and continue forever.
Preservation planning on the other hand, often times does not begin for several years after
acquisition and often ends after treatment is implemented and recorded. Figure 8 graphically
depicts the level of effort for a landscape preservation program over time from the time a prop-
erty is acquired.
To effectively care for a historic property, the maintenance staff needs to know the
signficance of each landscape feature and how it should be maintained. However, in many
cases the history and significance of each feature in the landscape is not fully understood.
Therefore the focus of maintenance operations shifts depending on what stage of the planning
process has been initiated and completed. Three.stages of theJandscape presE!rvation pi:ocess
are. described below and illustrated in Figure 9. · · · · .. · · · ·
During .the first stage, prior to research on the landscape, a Preservation Maintenance
Plan sl)ould b~ prepared which. focuses on the protection and stabilization of landscape fea-
tures to provide 'temporary, often emergency measures to halt deterioration or loss without
altering the site's existing character. All landscape features should be treated as significant and

3 For a description of the preservation planning process, refer to Preservation Brief #36, Protecting Cultural Landscapes:
Planning, Treatment and Management of Historic Landscapes, prepared by C. Birnbaum. US DOI, NPS, Cultural Resources,
.Preservation Assistance Division, 9 /1994.
I

10