Tree Planters Needed

Park Friends, in cooperation with DPS horticulturist Richard Beckwith, is looking for volunteers to help plant 35 baby shumard oaks this Tuesday, April 13th at 9:00am. We will meet at the Overton Park Golf House and should be finished within 1-2 hours. They're very small sticks right now, so the digging shouldn't be too strenuous. Sorry for the short notice but these trees were donated and must be planted now to insure the best hope for the survival. We hope you can join us for this.

John Branston on Free Day

Here's a nice meditation from the Flyer's John Branston on the psychology of "free" and how we value the things we pay for, even if the price is just a token fee.

Old Forest Wildflowers

The wildflowers are blooming their heads off for us in the Old Forest right now. It's a great time for a hike through the woods. Merlin and I have been taking full advantage of the paths in the forest on our morning walks lately. The wood poppies have been flaunting their yellow all through the heart of the forest. I think they spread more every year.
The periwinkle colored flower is Jacob's Ladder, one of my favorites, which has several rich swathes blooming near the center of the forest.
Trillium is all over -- we have a wonderful abundance of it.

The toothwort has just about finished now, but it was the first wildflower to put on a real display.

The mayapples are just beginning to open their flowers underneath their lovely umbrellas, so I'll try to get some photos to share here soon.

More Park Trees

Trees are leafing out in the park (thank goodness -- I've been ready for a while), but I thought I'd share one more bare trees drawing to say goodbye to winter and usher in spring.

Zoo announces new policies

The zoo released new attendance policies today in the wake of Tuesday's chaotic free day. Read them here.

Lick Creek Update

The city engineers keep coming up with new plans for flood detention in Overton Park. The most recent one scraps the high concrete wall around the edge of the zoo lot in favor of a two to four foot high berm (grass) hugging the edge of the high ground around the greensward roughly from the huge magnolias (where the zoo cars currently enter) on east to near the edge of the lake. While this plan will definitely hold more water during heavy rains, it doesn't disrupt the Greensward nearly as badly as their previous plan to dig it out 18 feet deep.

This latest plan leaves almost all the flat part of the Greensward untouched and available for games (the zoo is supposed to returning the soccer goals at long last), picnics, kite flying, etc.

I feel that the above list of activities should no longer include the zoo parking. The city is asking the park to take extra water to protect the zoo and the Belleair neighborhood, and in return, they should return the park to the people. We're still in talks with the engineers, and I hope to have a map to show this plan soon. Watch this space for updates.

Park Media Coverage continues

In addition to three letters to the editor in favor of legal protection for Overton Park, the main editorial today was on Tuesday's chaos that led to the brief closing of the park. I'm glad to see the park getting so much public attention, and I hope this leads to real change in the park, both permanent, legal protection and some rethinking of a few zoo policies (esp. parking on the Greensward) that takes the needs of the park and the surrounding neighborhoods into account.

I've had several email exchanges with zoo leaders who are looking for creative alternatives to the current free day structure, and hopefully they are also making progress on their quest to find an off-site parking area to supplement their main lot. It's past time for the Greensward to be for picnics, not parking.