Type: McPLANT Report
Name: Heather Sugg
Address: 2502 Kenmore Ave.
City: Charlotte, NC
Email: heather.sugg@gmail.com
Launch: April 2006
Location: Shamrock Park
Project: Shamrock Park Meadow
Funding: Country Club Heights Neighborhood Association
Approval: Mary Stauble
Hours: 40+ Helpers: Helpers: Roy Alexander
Jess Fischli
Joel Stegall
Reed Patterson
Several others who live in the Country Club Heights Neighborhood

 

Overview: For my outreach project, I have chosen Shamrock Neighborhood Park to be the site, after sending an email to people I know who may know of a good outreach project. A colleague of mine, Roy Alexander, whom I know from doing volunteer site steward monitoring work for Catawba Lands Conservancy, told me about his ideas for the park. Roy lives right across the street from the park. Shamrock Park consists of a 2-acre park with a native plant garden in the wooded area. There are a few natives interspersed with nonnative plants planted on either side of the tennis court. There is an invasive plant problem in the native garden mostly with Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica), Monkeygrass (Liriope spp.), and English Ivy (Hedera spp.).

 

Description: Wildflower Meadow In the sunniest area, there will be a wildflower meadow put in. It is the area beside the tennis courts that is currently in grass. This area also has a drainage under it and this area gets floodwater in heavy rains, so it could also be kind of a rain garden to filter out pollutants before the run-off water flows into the clean stream below (spring fed).

 

Implementation: The wildflower meadow is a 20 X 24 area.The area will be prepared for planting in the fall by putting a black plastic cover over the area to smother the grass to let die. In the fall, the area will be tilled, with added compost. Fall is a good time to plant since the plants can go dormant in winter and not suffer from droughts, as they might if planted in spring. In the spring, the plants would have already started their root growth in the soil from the previous fall, so they are stronger.

 

I would like neighborhood volunteers to help with the planting and the periodic watering until the plants have a stronghold in the soil (at least a year).

 

Among the plants that will be planted in the fall are: Purple Coneflower, Woodland Goldenrod, Widespread Maiden Fern, Fire Pink, Purple Meadow Parsnip, Bee Balm, Golden Groundsel, Peachie s Pick Stoke s Aster, Purple Smoke False Indigo, Native Beardtongue, Joe-Pye Weed, Stoke s Aster, Bleeding Heart, Sundrops fireworks , Orange Butterfly weed, Wood Aster, White False Indigo

 

The main outreach event was the Taking it to the Heights Festival (Saturday, April 8th 2006) at Shamrock Park. I manned the booth, disseminating information about solid waste reduction and backyard composting, with a demonstration included. The festival got rained out toward the middle of the event, so I did not reach as many people as intended.

 

Backyard Composting Display Originally, I thought this would be a good idea. I generated twenty-one signatures at the Taking it to the Heights Festival supporting this idea. However, only about two of them wanted to actually volunteer to help with the creation and maintenance of the compost pile(s). Therefore, there will be no Backyard Composting Display area since there isn t enough interest in its creation or maintenance.

 

Recommendations & Follow-up: Water the plants and weed the area Also add compost periodically