Have you spotted plastic tarps in certain areas of the park and wondered why? Fear not–they’re not picnic remnants or litter left behind. The tarps are an eco-friendly approach to fighting invasive plants without the use of harmful chemicals. It’s just one of the many ways that Prospect Park Alliance’s Landscape Management team has deployed environmentally friendly and innovative approaches to keep the park’s natural areas green and vibrant; including the use of goats to clear invasive weeds, ladybugs to tackle a harmful insect infestation, and layers of cardboard and mulch to ward off opportunistic plants of concern.

This season, the team has been hard at work implementing a technique called solarization to help keep the park’s landscape healthy and resilient with strategically placed sheets of plastic.

Solarization at work at the Children’s Pool in the Northeast corner of Brooklyn’s Backyard. Photo courtesy of Mary Keehbauch.

The team charts out a customized approach based on the specific needs of each landscape. “The plastic color and thickness is determined by the location and the target plants. Is it sunny or shady? Upland or near the watercourse?  Is it a small enough area that we will be successful with this method? How will it look or impact the experience of park users?” says Mary Keehbauch, Prospect Park Alliance’s Deputy Director of Landscape Management, on the meticulous planning behind this method. “Often, the invasive plants that are targeted would be nearly impossible to eradicate using traditional manual methods. Solarization is an opportunity to reclaim small target areas, causing less disturbance and, eventually, a lot less labor.”

Because of these shrub stumps’ location at the top of a steep slope, the team used solarization to avoid destabilizing the slope with digging. Photo courtesy of Mary Keehbauch.

At the onset, solarization is an intense labor of love and requires an area to either be completely cleared of all organic material, or in the case of the tall reeds near the lake, flattened with plywood. “Thankfully, we have very willing and devoted volunteers and staff that help prepare and install the appropriate type of plastic,” says Keehbauch. Thanks to the hard work of these staff and volunteers, native plants have been successfully reintroduced to the south Lakeshore area and parts of the Lullwater.

The solarization of a given area can span anywhere between two months to two or more years, and, while restoration will be ongoing, this technique has already helped slow the growth and minimize the presence of invasives in the park. Once an area is cleared or flattened, the team uses either black or white plastic to reap the benefits of solarization. Black plastic is used to block light and heat the roots of an invasive plant once it has been cut down, while clear plastic is used in areas of direct sunlight to stop the plant’s growth, heat up the soil to destroy the roots and rid the soil of any remaining seeds. The end result is soil that is ready to be planted with native, pollinator-friendly plants that will help Prospect Park’s ecosystem thrive.

The technique is currently underway in multiple areas in Brooklyn’s Backyard and is focused on suppressing Amur Honeysuckle (Lonicera maackii), Goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) and Common Reed (Phragmites australis). All three of these invasive plants spread quickly and form dense clusters that can outcompete and eventually replace the park’s native plants. This work allows native plants to grow and thrive, which promotes the longevity of Prospect Park’s landscape and helps protect the habitat of the countless wildlife that call the park home.

Keep an eye out for the innovative ways Prospect Park Alliance works to tackle invasive plants throughout the park and learn more about how the Alliance is sustaining the environment. 

It has been 10 years since Superstorm Sandy arrived in New York City, taking lives and leaving a path of destruction in its wake. As Brooklyn residents at the time will remember, Prospect Park was extremely hard hit by the storm and the work to recover and rebuild for the future has spanned the past decade. Revisit the timeline of the Superstorm Sandy events and how they have shaped the park today:

The Superstorm—October 2012

When Superstorm Sandy arrived in the New York City area on October 29, 2012, the winds caused widespread destruction in the park. All told, the storm felled over 500 trees throughout the park, including 50 trees around the Children’s Pool at the Vale of Cashmere. Revisit footage of the aftermath of the storm in Prospect Park from WNYC. 

The Alliance worked to address storm damage in the Vale, in the Park’s northeast corner: cleaning up downed trees, resetting damaged boulders, and planting native trees and shrubs in order to stabilize the Vale’s slopes.

The Zucker Natural Play Area utilizes trees that came down in Hurricane Sandy.

The Zucker Natural Exploration Area—October 2013

A year after Superstorm Sandy, some of the downed trees found new life in the Donald and Barbara Zucker Natural Exploration Area. Tree trunks and branches were used by Prospect Park Alliance to create a new play area for children, where natural materials took center stage and imaginations ran wild. The Exploration Area was an instant hit and continues to be a beloved destination for families in the park.

New York State Grant—2016

The Alliance received $1.2 million in funding from the National Parks Service through the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Assistance Grant Program for Historic Properties, administered by New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, to restore the Vale and Lookout Hill (another damaged area) to a healthy, native woodland habitat. With this funding, Prospect Park Alliance began in earnest the work of deliberate and significant restoration work in these storm-ravaged areas of the park.

A crew of goats, hired to aid in the restoration work. 

The Goats Arrive—2016 + 2017

In areas of the park where trees fell, invasive plants were able to thrive and overrun the natural ecosystem. Steep slopes and poison ivy made clearing these areas a daunting task for staff, so Prospect Park Alliance called in the experts—a herd of goats! In 2016 and 2017, Prospect Park Alliance brought goats to Prospect Park as part of its woodland restoration efforts in the Vale in the park’s Northeast Corner and Lookout Hill. Instant Brooklyn celebrities, the goats were extremely efficient workers and relished the work of clearing delicious (to them) poison ivy. With full bellies, the goats finished their Prospect Park work season in October 2017, making way for new plantings in the park.

Hurricane Sandy Crew + Landscape Restoration—2016-2020

Prospect Park Alliance brought on a three-person crew to undertake the intensive restoration work necessary in the areas of the park affected by Hurricane Sandy. Tree inventories and health and hazard assessments were completed to quantify and prioritize the removal of damaged trees, including nonnative species that are detrimental to the ecological health of the woodlands. The crew selected a plant palette of climate-resilient and beneficial native plant species to replant in the area. The areas most affected by the storm became hotspots of year-round activity, with the crew and a dedicated team of volunteers hard at work.

In October of 2017, exactly 150 years to the day that Olmsted and Vaux opened Prospect Park’s doors to the public for the first time, Prospect Park Alliance volunteers and staff rolled up their sleeves and got planting in the Vale. Over 20,000 trees, plants and shrubs were planted—a selection aimed at building a healthy and long-lasting forest habitat for birds, wildlife and humans alike. A finishing touch to the lower Vale area was the installation of a rustic woodland trail, which brings accessibility into the heart of the restored area and invites the public to experience the forest as it grows.

Mary Keehbauch, Deputy Director of Landscape Management, and AJ Logan,  Ecological Zone Gardener, former members of the Hurricane Sandy Crew, standing in the restored Vale landscape.

The work completed was comprehensive and has been a success: this portion of the park has been restored to strong ecological health which will benefit the park’s plant and animal communities long term. The work in this area was undertaken by Alliance staff including the Hurricane Sandy Crew, and was supported along the way by a dedicated team of Prospect Park Alliance volunteers and the members of the Woodlands Youth Crew.

These years of hard work to recover from the damage caused by Superstorm Sandy continue to inform Prospect Park Alliance’s work to sustain the park now, and as we look to the future. The restored areas of the landscape in the Northeast corner of the park are flourishing and providing a blueprint for the work that is planned throughout the Vale area and beyond in the park to make our landscapes resilient as we face the challenges of the climate crisis and work to improve the park for the people, plants and animals that depend on it.

Learn more about Prospect Park Alliance’s work to Sustain the Environment.