Bittersweet Park Improvements

In early 2019 the City of Greeley hired the landscape architecture team of Matrix Design group to help lead three community outreach and engagement sessions aimed at identifying opportunities for water conservation and site amenity improvements at Bittersweet Park. At thirty years old, the irrigation system had become inefficient and was experiencing failure. Park staff felt this was a unique opportunity to partner with water resource teams and Greeley citizens to implement water conservation measures and identify park improvement opportunities. Greeley residents chose to implement a water conservation project that will convert 21 acres of high water use turf grass to alternative varieties that once established, will reduce water consumption, improve urban habitat, reduce maintenance hours and add additional pathway improvements throughout the park. It is not surprising that residents chose an aggressive approach given that Greeley has been a leader in water conservation for many years.

Work began as scheduled in the spring of 2020 and by fall of 2020 the irrigation system has been completed and the first seeding of the site has been completed.  Throughout the fall of 2020 and into the future, work crews will monitor native seed growth and reseed where necessary.  Additionally, as with all seeding projects, weeds will continue to be a nuisance until the native grasses are well established.  There is no set amount of time for the native grasses to become established; however, the average length of time in a semi-arid climate such as Greeley is 3-5 growing seasons.  The first season, in this case, 2020, will be the most noticeable season for weed growth, but as work crews cut and remove weeds and reseed the native grasses, each season will have fewer weeds and larger stands of native grasses until they choke out the weed species across much of the site.

 
Please see the FAQs above for more answers to common landscape conversion questions about this project.