A section of former housing at Reciprocity Community Food Forest is becoming a permanent native wildflower meadow. The site was condemned for water damage and cleared down to shale and foundation rubble. Building a meadow here means building soil first: a multi-year, herbicide-free process that starts with cover crops and ends with self-sustaining habitat.
About This Project
This is not a conventional lawn conversion. The site at Reciprocity was once residential housing, condemned after long-term water damage and cleared down to shale and foundation rubble. Sparse grass grows across the surface, but there is almost no topsoil and essentially no ecological function. Building a wildflower meadow here means starting from the ground up.
Our first step was planting a cover crop to loosen the soil, add organic matter, and naturally outcompete existing grass without herbicides. This fall, we’ll sow perennial native wildflower seeds alongside a second cover crop. In early spring, the cover crop is cut and crimped directly into the site, feeding the soil and creating a mulch layer that native seedlings can push through. By spring 2027, the meadow begins to emerge: self-sustaining, chemical-free, and teeming with pollinators.
This is a long game. But the result is a meadow that needs almost no maintenance and supports native insects, birds, and the broader food forest ecosystem for decades to come.
When complete, this project converts thousands of square feet of degraded urban ground into self-sustaining native meadow habitat, without a single herbicide application. The meadow sits directly adjacent to the food forest’s fruit tree guilds, creating a connected pollinator landscape across the entire site. And because Reciprocity is a public space in Altoona, it becomes a living demonstration: what was once rubble and sparse grass can become thriving native habitat.
Partners
- Pennsylvania DCNR Lawn to Habitat Program: technical assistance, species selection, and project support
- Ecotopian Earthcare: implementing partner for site preparation and planting
Support Our Work
This project is supported by the Pennsylvania DCNR Lawn to Habitat Program. If you’d like to support the chapter’s broader work across central Pennsylvania, contributions to our General Fund go directly toward tools, materials, and new projects.