Green gardening: Phipps Ocean Park redo will be model for sustainability Kim Frisbie Special to the Daily News
Mangroves filter water for marine life, providing food for birds such as the roseate spoonbill.
April 21, 2023
I was fortunate to have a recent tour of the wonderful Phipps Ocean Park. This exciting project will be a tremendous gift to the residents of Palm Beach.
The Preservation Foundation’s plans for the renovation of this 18-acre area include educational facilities and native landscaping to promote and restore environmental sustainability. In 1948, the Phipps family donated 1,200 feet of ocean frontage for use as a public park to ensure the land remained open in perpetuity. The park has not been well-managed in the intervening 75 years, is grossly underutilized, and currently consists of just some random paths and picnic tables with a few cabanas. Plantings are infested with invasive species including Brazilian pepper and melaleuca, and it is not an inviting area to visit.
Enter the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach in 2019 with a master plan for the park, incorporating educational facilities with native landscaping to restore, protect and preserve the coastal and intracoastal vegetation. Unique, diverse, and extraordinary spaces will inspire visitors to understand and appreciate the importance of environmental sustainability. With Raymond Jungles’ vision to promote the park as a nature preserve, it will be planted with only native species, capturing the original spirit of the land as the Phipps family knew it. Visitors will gain exceptional education and information on plants they can add to their own landscapes, seeing how different species grow on coastal and inland areas.
Saw palmetto lining a pathway
The ocean dunes and accompanying paths will be restored to include a lovely horizon plateau from which panoramic ocean views will merge with views of the entire park all the way to the Intracoastal Waterway. Paths will be curvilinear to enhance visitors’ appreciation of the many new features and diverse habitat of the area. This is an approach heralded by Capability Brown in England in the 1780s and continued by Frederick Law Olmsted here in America. Even on a small scale, curvilinear paths provide a wonderful alternative to linear trails, offering pleasing surprises around each bend.
A native wildflower garden will fill the park’s natural basin, providing water for the vegetation without excess irrigation. Elevated walkways will enable access without disturbing the plant material or the native habitat. Plants will be labeled for easy reference for future use.
The ocean dunes to the east will be restored with natives after removing the invasives that have overtaken the original plant inhabitants. On the west, along the Intracoastal, mangroves will be planted to provide a living sustainable shoreline. Mangroves provide protected nurseries for juvenile fish, crustaceans, shellfish and all marine life while shielding coastal communities from storm surge and destructive winds. They are a fundamental defense against hurricanes and tropical storms and are essential to the health of our fisheries and aquifers.
A closeup of the flower of the railroad vine
Red, white and black mangroves, all native to Florida, will be included in the plans. Mangroves contribute to the overall health of our waterways by filtering water through their root systems: this ecosystem traps and cycles organic materials and important nutrients, providing food for fish and multitudes of marine species. The roots also provide attachment surfaces for marine organisms that filter water through their bodies and trap and cycle nutrients, restoring water quality and clarity.
Mangrove roots provide habitat for marine life while filtering water and protecting shorelines from heavy winds and storm surges
The relationship between mangroves, marine life and water quality cannot be overemphasized and Floridians should appreciate this as part of our state heritage and among our most valuable natural resources.
Phipps Ocean Park will also embody an important coastal restoration center dedicated to growing native species for the park and for the Town of Palm Beach. This nursery/propagation facility will provide hands-on activities for children and adults for restoring coastal ecosystems throughout the island or in their own landscapes.
Dune sunflower makes a great ground cover in dry sandy soil. It’s drought- and salt-tolerant
The historic Little Red Schoolhouse, built in 1886 and recently restored to its one-room glory, will interact with a new outdoor classroom sponsored by the Garden Club of Palm Beach to provide additional educational opportunities for children in an engaging native setting.
Finally, rain gardens will create models for flood control, mitigating stormwater runoff by filtering chemicals and waste residue. The 18,000-square-foot parking lot will be the first in Palm Beach to use solely permeable pavers, and these will be incorporated into the park’s design, hopefully incentivizing future parking areas on our island to be beautiful and ecologically friendly.
The bay cedar has beautiful flowers and soft-textured foliage
And of course there must be recreation; this is a park, after all. Some 5,000 square feet will be allocated to a fantastic dune playground made from sustainable materials and inspired by local ecosystems. Vegetation and topography will be incorporated into the designs with areas for preschoolers up to teenagers and beyond. I can’t wait to bring my kids here, and I plan to join them in all the interactive play.
This will truly be an extraordinary space and the native plant material will provide all of us with a better understanding of how natives can be incorporated into every landscape. We are at a critical juncture in our relationship with our environment, and our plantings should no longer be simply decorative. We have imported thousands of plant species from foreign countries and they have arrived with alien insect pests and diseases that have decimated native plant communities upon which our local food webs depend. New plantings must provide shelter, food, and habitat: we must give something back to the ecosystem or we will lose our pollinators, birds and butterflies.
Soft foliage and stunning flowers make sea lavender an ideal hedge along the ocean
So here are some of the plants you can expect to find at the fabulous Phipps Ocean Park. All of these are host plants for specific butterflies and provide nectar for pollinators and insects, who in turn feed birds and animals.
Along the dunes there will be sea oats (Uniola paniculate) and muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris); beach creeper (Ernodia littoralis); dune sunflower (Helianthus debilis); railroad vine (Ipomoea pes-caprae); and the wonderful sea lavender (Argusia gnaphalodes). This latter is one of Florida’s most spectacular shrubs, and certainly one of our most elegant coastal plants. Its beautiful soft silvery gray-green foliage and lovely small white flowers seem impossible given the conditions it prefers: full sun, no extra irrigation, and constant buffeting by salty winds and sea spray. It grows into lovely 5-foot mounds of soft, almost fuzzy, foliage twinkling with sparkling flowers that bloom year-round. I love this plant!
Further inland will showcase saw palmetto (Serenoa repens); bay cedar (Suriana maritima); coontie (Zamia pumila); stoppers (Eugenia spp.); marlberry (Ardisia escallonoides) and cocoplum (Chrysobalanus icaco), to name just a few. A marvelous legacy strangler fig (Ficus aurea) will mark the pedestrian entry, where all the interwoven trails and paths converge. Other trees will include live oak (Quercus virginiana); Dahoon holly (Ilex cassine); sea grape (Coccoloba uvifera); Bahama strongbark (Bourreria ovata); shortleaf fig (Ficus citrifolia), host to the giant swallowtail; lancewood (Nectandra coriacea); buttonwood (Conocarous erectus); sweet acacia (Acacia farnesiana), and gumbo limbo (Bursera simaruba). All these plants are stunning, and will promote habitat for coastal birds, butterflies, and wildlife.
The cinnamon-colored bark of the gumbo limbo tree
The park will provide a true model of sustainability through its commitment to showcasing the beauty, diversity and benefits of native plants. Let’s all do our part to emulate the vision of the Preservation Foundation by adding more natives to our own landscapes. This will alleviate the need for pesticides and toxic chemicals that degrade our water, soil, and the air we breathe. We need to treat nature with a lot more respect, remembering that we are the beneficiaries, not the masters, of her vibrant world.