Elings Park and Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s Landscape Transformation Project is looking for volunteers willing to get their hands dirty by helping to control invasive plants and planting California-natives on a one-acre site on the park’s South Bluff.

A white-gloved hand pats the soil around newly planted greenery at Elings Park.
A Volunteer Restoration Work Party will take place 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Sept. 16 at Elings Park. Credit: Courtesy photo

The project breaks ground with the first Volunteer Restoration Work Party, 10 a.m.-noon Saturday, Sept. 16, following the monthly Elings Park Nature Walks led by garden experts, 9-10 a.m.

The Sept. 16 hike focuses on pollinators and is led by Sarah Cusser, a garden terrestrial invertebrate conservation ecologist, and Kylie Etter, a conservation technician. Walkers meet at the park’s administration building parking lot.

The first phase of the restoration project involves installing black plastic (and later, cardboard) to discourage weeds. The project and science experiences concentrate California’s native plants in this area and will compare the abundance, diversity, and composition of plant and animal life both before and after the transformation.

Work parties will continue on the third Saturday of the month, at least through spring 2024; more dates will be added.

To register, visit www.SBBotanicGarden.org/classes-events/landscape-transformation-project-volunteer-opportunities.

As site preparation begins, nonprofit contractor Channel Islands Restoration (CIR) has joined the project. CIR works on the islands and locally to restore habitat through invasive plant management, native plant propagation, and native plant installation. CIR also promotes environmental education and conduct research and monitoring. For more, visit www.cirweb.org.

“This multi-faceted project helps us to determine best practices for restoring the rest of the South Bluffs at Elings Park,” said Denise Knapp, the garden’s director of conservation and research.

“We’re super excited to partner with Channel Islands Restoration and to share our combined strengths in habitat restoration, food webs, community building, and scientific experiments,” Knapp said.

“Channel Islands Restoration has been a proactive part of restoration at Elings alongside many other organizations over the years,” said Ken Owen, CIR executive director. “This new project partnership with the garden provides an important research component to the park’s ongoing restoration.

“It also allow our community members to make a direct impact to enhance this shared space.”

Community members also can attend the final of four free public forums, 5:30-7 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 13 in Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s Blaksley Library. The forum will be led by Knapp and Scot Pipkin, the garden’s director of education.

For the restoration project, donations of clean, wax-free, cardboard are needed to be used together with wood chips and mulch, as eco-friendly sheet mulching to block sunlight and prevent weed seeds from germinating in the project site.

Boxes must be broken down. Donations are being accepted at the Elings Park Administration Building 9 a.m.-5 p.m. weekdays, and at the garden, 3-5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 20; 8-10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 29 and Wednesday, Oct. 4; and 3-5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 13.

The project’s one-acre location on the South Bluffs has been selected and staff and project volunteers will control the weed seed bank, then plant and monitor the native species.

Earlier this year, garden staff began monitoring plants, birds, pollinators, and other bugs, and will be following up after planting to gather more data on the site’s vitality. Data before and after the transformation will be compared, and both will be compared to an adjacent invaded area.

Elings Park opened in 1985 as the result of a community campaign to turn the former landfill into a public park. First encompassing 90 acres, the park expanded to 230 acres in 1994 with the purchase of an adjacent property.

Currently, about 75% is undeveloped, much of it in the South Bluffs area addressed in this project.

Over the past two years, a number of invasive plants have been removed from the park’s most visited areas and some 250 California-native oaks, plus thousands of native grasses and shrubs, have been planted.

A series of free nature walks at Elings Park continues through December 2023. Each hike has a different natural history focus, such as plants, pollinators, or birds. For more, visit www.SBBotanicGarden.org/calendar.