I’m honored to have been asked and am eager to get to work managing the SHIP Gardens at Jake’s Branch County Park in Beachwood, NJ. SHIP Gardens are demonstration gardens created to inspire ideas on how to implement low maintenance, locally appropriate landscaping practices into your own yard.
Ocean County Soil Conservation District, through funding from the Barnegat Bay Partnership, led a research team to identify the optimal physical, chemical and biological properties of Ocean County’s sandy soils.
The district’s goal was to implement practices that create fully functioning soils which support healthy turf and are both practical and easily duplicated. A series of demonstration gardens were created to showcase native landscape options that are low cost, low impact and low maintenance.
There are currently 5 SHIP Gardens at Jake’s Branch…
- The Butterfly Garden
- The Rain Garden
- The Shade Garden
- The Sun Garden
- The Wet Garden
The gardens were planted with native plants and you can discover all about the origin of the project and the plants installed in the gardens here: SHIP Gardens
I’ve met with Ben and Michelle from the park, Becky from soildistrict.org and Ray, the current watershed ambassador who will also be helping with garden maintenance. This group was in search of a local, long term volunteer to consistently manage and maintain the gardens. I’ve promised to help as much as I can, for as long as I can.
From what I gather so far, the projects were initially completed in 2014 and in the 4 years since then the gardens have evolved. The land itself is challenging due to drainage and compaction issues. Current access to irrigation is inconvenient and far from the garden sites. Some of the plants have been very successful, and some have succumbed to the elements. Replacements have been provided to plant out in spring.
Signage needs to be revised to reflect the new layouts, split rail fencing should be installed, a rainbarrel will be set up along with a new kiosk nearby describing the project and weed control has to be addressed.
The first tasks at hand are to remove obvious invasive weeds and to create a new no-dig, sheet mulched garden bed along the plant discovery trail to become the new site of the butterfly garden. The remaining plants from the old garden site will be moved to the new location in spring. Currently, the staff at Jake’s Branch has collected materials including used hay bales and cardboard we will layer to create the new bed. This will be topped with mulch and allowed to rest through winter.
In early spring we will meet again to coordinate and work to erect the fence and signage and to install at least one rain barrel. We will assess emerging plants, remove and pot up reseeded plants and install deep mulch to prevent and stay ahead of the weeds.
In the interim, I will visit the gardens as often as I can to observe, make notes and make recommendations about permaculture principles that may be helpful in context including swale installations to help slow and sink water in situ, keyhole access to prevent further compaction and more as needed. This post includes photos I took at our initial meeting and tour of the sleeping, dormant gardens, December 2018.