Earth Tech Environmental partnered with Habitat for Humanity of Collier County and Audubon Western Everglades on a comprehensive native habitat restoration and preserve management project at the Tree Farm Apartments community in Naples, Florida. The project encompasses a 0.52-acre native vegetation preserve and approximately 9,280 square feet of littoral shelf habitat, combining upland, transitional, and aquatic-edge restoration within the residential community. Rather than functioning as a single planting event, Earth Tech’s scope was designed as a multi-phase restoration and long-term management program to establish native habitat, control invasive vegetation, and maintain the ecological integrity of the site as the newly planted communities mature.

Work began with an initial pre-planting herbicide treatment throughout the 0.52-acre preserve, targeting exotic and nuisance vegetation and preparing the site for successful native plant establishment. Earth Tech then installed required preserve signage to clearly identify and protect designated conservation areas before completing extensive supplemental native planting throughout the preserve. The planting plan incorporated more than 3,100 upland native trees, shrubs, grasses, and groundcovers, including slash pine, laurel oak, firebush, American beautyberry, cocoplum, fakahatchee grass, sand cordgrass, muhly grass, and wiregrass.

An additional 2,000 native wetland plants were installed within the approximately 9,280-square-foot littoral shelf, including pickerelweed, arrowhead, yellow canna, spikerush, and soft-stem bulrush. Together, the upland preserve and littoral shelf installation represent more than 5,100 native plants introduced to the site. The combination of canopy trees, native shrubs, dense grasses and groundcovers, and emergent aquatic vegetation creates multiple layers of functional habitat while supporting shoreline stabilization, stormwater treatment, erosion reduction, water-quality improvement, and wildlife use.

Importantly, Earth Tech’s involvement continues well beyond installation. The project includes quarterly preserve maintenance, with crews conducting targeted herbicide treatment of invasive and nuisance vegetation, foliar treatment where appropriate, cutting and stump treatment of woody exotic species, and hand removal of invasive and herbaceous material. The littoral shelf also receives dedicated follow-up herbicide management to control unwanted vegetation while allowing the newly established native wetland community to develop. These recurring management activities are critical to protecting the investment in restoration and preventing invasive species from outcompeting newly established native vegetation.

Earth Tech also provides ongoing preserve monitoring and reporting, including field data collection, preparation of baseline monitoring information, annual monitoring reports, and documentation of the preserve’s progress in accordance with applicable agency requirements. This combination of site preparation, native plant installation, wetland enhancement, invasive species management, quarterly maintenance, and ecological monitoring represents a complete restoration lifecycle—from initial site preparation through establishment and long-term stewardship.

The Tree Farm Apartments project also marks the beginning of a broader 2026 partnership between Earth Tech Environmental and Audubon Western Everglades to help incorporate meaningful native habitat into upcoming Habitat for Humanity communities. By integrating functional preserve areas and littoral habitat directly into residential development, these projects demonstrate that community growth and environmental stewardship do not have to be competing goals. The restored Tree Farm habitat has the potential to provide food, shelter, breeding habitat, aquatic refuge, and movement corridors for more than 125 native wildlife species, including pollinators, songbirds, wading birds, amphibians, reptiles, small mammals, and aquatic organisms—creating a lasting ecological resource alongside a community designed to provide lasting resources for people.