Park Angels help spruce up gardens

  • Nita Birmingham
  • Posted: Thursday, January 29, 2009 12:01 a.m.
    UPDATED: Thursday, March 22, 2012 5:21 p.m.
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A jogger passes by the sign at Brittlebank Park on Lockwood Drive. The Charleston Parks Conservancy and its volunteer Park Angels recently added mulch to the garden bed at the base of the sign and pruned the bushes as part of the organization's maintenance of the site.
Nita Birmingham /The Post and CourierA jogger passes by the sign at Brittlebank Park on Lockwood Drive. The Charleston Parks Conservancy and its volunteer Park Angels recently added mulch to the garden bed at the base of the sign and pruned the bushes as part of the organization's maintenance of the site.

It takes a lot of mowing, pruning, weeding, planting, fertilizing and painting for Charleston Parks Department employees to maintain about 120 pieces of property that range in size from tiny to 200-acre facilities.

With a staff of about 70 people, it doesn't require a lot of math to figure out the department could use some help.

"We're pretty much maxed out on what we can do," Deputy Director of Parks Matt Compton said.

The department is responsible for more than 1,200 acres, of which about 900 are under active maintenance, Compton said. So he welcomed the Charleston Parks Conservancy volunteers who showed up last week to take over maintenance of the raised rectangular beds at Marion Square in downtown Charleston.

"Every hour that the Parks Conservancy replaces with a volunteer, that's an hour we can spend on other elements," Compton said.

The volunteers, dubbed Park Angels, worked on about half the raised beds and will return in February to finish the job.

They cleaned out trash and pruned plants damaged by the weather, said Parks Conservancy Executive Director Jim Martin.

Volunteers will clean the beds on a regular basis and look at doing some new plantings, he said.

The Marion Square project was the first in a series of Garden Cleanup days.

In the coming weeks, volunteers will take over maintenance of several garden areas in Brittlebank Park and Chapel Street Triangle Park.

Martin said the parks were chosen because they have good exposure and volunteers will be able to get to the sites more often than the city.

Volunteers will mulch and renovate the area around the large sign at Brittlebank Park. They also will develop a plan to replant, Martin said.

"Chapel Street is by far one of the prettiest parks in the park system," Martin said.

It's an established park that isn't known to tourists, and it could use more regular maintenance, he said.

The Parks Conservancy also is continuing to work with the Charleston Horticultural Society to beautify the Windermere Boulevard Community Garden in West Ashley.

The project began in June 2007. On Jan. 31, volunteers will clean out the garden, mulch and do new plantings, Martin said.

South Carolina financier and philanthropist Darla Moore launched the nonprofit Parks Conservancy in 2007 with a gift of $10 million, but the organization didn't go public until last summer, when it announced the formation of Park Angels. There are now about 85 Angels, Martin said.

"They're a relatively young organization. They're kind of growing that core group (of volunteers) and they're just beginning to aggressively take over space. We're happy to have them on board," Compton said.

Compton hopes to one day enlist Park Angels to help with maintenance at Waterfront Park. In late March or early April of each year, parks employees change about 4,000 plants near the pineapple fountain.

"We put eight people on it, and it takes pretty much two days," Compton said.

Like Martin, Compton believes it's possible for the Parks Conservancy to successfully maintain park areas with volunteers.

"In fact, we're counting on it," Compton said.

Similar programs have worked well in other areas, including New York City, where a conservancy is responsible for most of the upkeep of Central Park, Compton said.