The Friends of Fonticello Park believe in the importance of reintroducing native plants to the park in order to support the local ecosystem, preserve biodiversity, reduce the heat island effect, combat climate change, conserve water, and provide beauty and healthy spaces for our community.

During the September 21, 2022, Friends of Fonticello Park meeting with Parks and Recreation, Shamar Young proposed that the city could begin immediately working on a native meadow in the old playground space. He indicated they would be willing to till and level the area and plant wildflower seed in that space as part of the city’s attempt to become a “Bee City” .

While this idea was intriguing, unfortunately, wildflower mixes are only native to the country usually, not the region. While they would provide immediate gratification, the Friends of Fonticello Park would rather see this done with true native plants from our local ecosystems. We want to make this an educational space in the park, where community members can come to learn about local ecosystem plants, how they support wildlife and native pollinators, increase soil health, and contribute to cleaner waterways. Our hope is that we may even be able to support seed sharing for folks to plant in their own yard gardens.

From this meeting, Friends of Fonticello Park reached out to Ashley Moulton of Moulton Hot Natives and Bill Shanabruch of Reedy Creek Environmental for help. On September 26, volunteers from the Friends group, Ashley and Bill met in the park to devise a plan and course of action.

The Park system came out January 11, 2023 and tilled and leveled the space in preparation for planting. We are currently raising funds to purchase plants for our Fall 2023 planting. We have applied to two grants that would fund this work. Unfortunately, we were not awarded one of the grants we applied for. We are still waiting to hear back on the second grant.

The Friends are considering moving the meadow to the area to the east of the tennis courts instead of where the old playground use to be to maintain a larger greenspace for sports and games. The area to the east of the tennis courts is sloped and often underused. There is a plan to install a walkway through the park that connects the amenities.

In 2006, a group of neighbors did a little “gorilla gardening” in the park. They installed bench planters and a variety of ornamental plants on the Perry side of the park on a roundabout in the park and around the sign at the park entrance. Since that time, the pollinator garden in the park has been mowed and overgrown. The benches rotted and became a hazard.

In April 2023, the Friends of Fonticello Park began work on the Pollinator Garden. This work focused on removing invasive plant species, such as Annual Honest (Lunaria annua), English Ivy (Hedera helix), and Liriope (Liriope spicata). During the April Workday, volunteers dug up these and other invasive species, removed the benches while retaining the planters, laid cardboard to smother grasses and other weedy plants, and started lining some of the gardens to create a distinction between them and walkways. The work will continue at subsequent work days in 2023.

If you are interested in getting involved, please reach out using the Gift of Time form on the Getting Involved page.