La Casa Collectiva is a cooperative house which is a member of the COUCH — the Community Of Urbana Champaign Housing organization. The site has two acres of “Drummer” and “Flannagan” soils that never seem to have been developed, though the classic urban detritus accumulation is present all over the site. We’ve dug two feet straight down and seen nothing but friable black prairie soil. The site has some drainage issues.
The site has upwards of 100 species planted in guilds, a swale, a berm, an herb spiral, and several species of bamboo. Read the Plant Survey from 2004.
There is a more fulsome website on the La Casa garden, spanning 2003 up to present, here: http://lacasaurbana.wordpress.com/