Page 7 - doi_landscapemaintenance1998

FOREWORD TO FIRST EDITION

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In 1872 Frederick Law Olmsted described, in a letter to Henry G. Stebbins, the importance of
landscape maintenance:

The character of the park, its beauty and fitness for the purposes it has been designed to serve; in one
word its value to the public, is to be far more affected by the work ... done upon it than by all that is
to be done upon accurate drawings ....
For example, the ... seeding, mowing, rolling and weeding of turf; the spading, forking, raking ...
the constant repairs, ordinary and extraordinary, and ... the thinning and pruning of trees and shrubs;
the replacing or reinforcement of decaying wood work; the painting of iron work ...

Managers of historic landscapes recognize, as Olmsted did, the important role of
maintenance in preserving the character of a landscape. As the field of preservation has devel-
oped, the complexity and challenges of maintaining a historic landscape have also become
increasingly clear. In our experience working with landscape managers, development of a
historic landscape maintenance plan has proved to be an effective tool for integrating preser-
vation objectives into landscape maintenance operations, and for planning and documenting
work. In order to make this tool more readily available to other managers, we have developed
this Guide.

Working collaboratively with maintenance managers, gardeners, landscape architects,
and preservation specialists, Margaret Coffin has developed a clear step-by-step procedure to

systematically describe preservation maintenance. Colleagues in the National Park Service and
other organizations implemented earlier drafts of this guide and provided invaluable feed-
back. As you use the Guide, I encourage you to contact the Olmsted Center for Landscape
Preservation with your thoughts and comments. With your assistance, the staff at the Olmsted
Center can continue to improve this Guide as part of our efforts to provide practical guidance
on the stewardship of significant historic landscapes.

Charles Pepper
Manager, Preservation Maintenance Branch
Olmsted Center for Landscape Preservation
June 1995

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