2022 Restoration Project

Spring 2022 ushered in the second year of FoPP’s expansive restoration of Pastorius Park. FoPP’s planting plan, crafted by Paul Meyer, was executed in late-March and April in park Areas 3 & 4, and on the edge of the central meadow (see our restoration map). Contrasted with the legacy trees which are aging out, this rich and vibrant mix of new oaks, black gums, redbuds, magnolias, oriental spruce, plane trees, dogwoods, and shadbush show the public in real time what the park will become in the future.

FoPP’s Fall 2022 plantings cover Areas 2 & 3 on the restoration map. Featuring Appalachian red redbuds, creamy yellow-flowered Lois magnolias, various flowering dogwoods, sugar maples, and gorgeous Yoshino cherry trees, this Fall planting plan fulfills one of FoPP’s key restoration goals: to expand and enrich Pastorius’ palette to contain many more flowering trees, both to enhance seasonal beauty and benefit pollinators and wildlife. Also included in this plan are 3 Debonaire pond cypresses, appropriately for the upper stream area of the park, as well as 2 willow oaks along the central meadow.

The ongoing restoration of Pastorius Park is a successful collaboration of volunteers, community groups, generous donors, large and small, and local arborists. Restoration projects at the park have created interest, excitement, and pride in our park community.

New community engagement with the park was amply demonstrated on Arbor Day 2022, when 4 local arborists, the Hedgerows Arborist Services, John B Ward Tree Experts, McFarland Tree, Landscape & Hardscape Services, and Shechtman Tree Care, LLC volunteered their crews from early morning to early afternoon to prune legacy trees in Pastorius’ central meadow. This is work that FoPP had been doing annually but piecemeal at the park for decades, hampered by lack of funding and other priorities. These arborists did a phenomenal amount of long-overdue tree work, and their efforts have transformed that portion of Pastorius, helping keep these old trees as healthy as possible in their decline.

The Garden Club of Philadelphia and Wissahickon Garden Club, staunch supporters of FoPP restoration efforts, have been generous both with donations and their volunteers who are responsible for planting many of the new native shrubs at the park, as well as removing much of the invasive plants that plague Pastorius.

CHCA’s Green Space Committee has awarded FoPP several matching grants since restoration work began at the park in Spring 2021. These matching grants have allowed FoPP to keep up the momentum of both Spring and Fall projects for the past 2 years. But restoration of a 16 acre park is a multi-year endeavor. In order to continue our progress at Pastorius with our great advisors, Paul Meyer and Rob Fleming, FoPP requires reliable, regular funding to help harness future grants towards seasonal restoration work, and to enable our organization to do the regular maintenance of Pastorius Park’s assets (such as the pond, masonry, and existing plantings) that people may take for granted. This is a huge, decades-long responsibility that our all-volunteer non-profit organization has taken on for the benefit of our community and our beloved park. Please help us continue our work to keep Pastorius Park the gem that it is, and consider making a yearly donation.

Your donation is fully tax deductible, and much-appreciated.

Sincerely,

Tracy Gardner, President Friends of Pastorius Park

 

2021 Restoration Project

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

I am writing you to ask for your help in restoring the plantings of our beloved Pastorius Park.

Over the years, with little from the City, Friends of Pastorius Park has stepped up to clean, repair, and restore many of Pastorius Park’s assets, including the park’s masonry, warming hut, benches, moat, pond, and water system. Most recently this spring, FoPP spearheaded, in partnership with CHCA’s Greenspace committee, the restoration of the park’s amphitheater with installation of new native hedges, and Wissahickon style perimeter planting beds.

But Pastorius’ most important assets, by far, are its trees.

For decades, FoPP has annually paid for the treatment of the park’s hemlocks to protect against the woolly Adelgid pest and spider mites, and pruned and maintained many of the legacy trees. However, with the aging and increasing loss of its original trees, Pastorius Park is now at an important crossroads.

For the sake of the park’s future, while also preserving its original Olmsted-inspired design and intent as a passive green space, now is the time to begin a thorough restoration of Pastorius to prepare the park for the next generation. This means planting a diverse selection of new trees, flowering, deciduous, evergreens, and shrubs beneficial to birds and other wildlife.

The good news is that FoPP is fortunate to have great advisors for this restoration work in Paul Meyer (retired director of Morris Arboretum) and Rob Fleming (landscape architect and historian, with an interest in ecological restoration). Paul and Rob have advised us every step of the way, starting with removal of invasives from the park. Please see the Pastorius Park restoration map on the following page.

Area 1 on the map is FoPP’s Pilot Restoration Project. This is the intersection of Roanoke/W. Abington, at the SE entrance to the park. This April FoPP had arborist Erik Werner of Hedgerows and his crew remove islands of invasive plants, as well as a Norway maple that was contributing to the invasive problem. As a consequence of these removals, this end of the park has been opened up, creating more light and vistas into the park’s central meadow. The community reaction to this work has been overwhelmingly positive.
The next stage in the Area 1 restoration work is maintenance of weeds by FoPP volunteers, prep of planting beds and, finally, a planting plan for fall 2021. Rob and Paul have provided us with this planting plan, consisting of 39 trees and 29 shrubs. The larger trees will be installed by an arborist, while the container shrubs will be planted by volunteers. The general positioning of the new trees and shrubs has already been laid out with flags in both Area 1 and Area 2 where extended volunteer work to remove invasives occurred earlier this spring.

The Pilot Project at Roanoke/W. Abington and the Lincoln Dr. entrance to the park provides a template for how restoration work at Pastorius will proceed from Fall 2021 going into Spring and Summer 2022:

1) Hire contractors to do the toughest removal of invasives
2) Have volunteers follow up with clean up and regular maintenance, and
3) Planting of larger trees by contractors; smaller plants to be installed by volunteers

Everything is in place to do this restoration planting at Pastorius Park, but what is sorely needed now is sustained funding. FoPP is respectfully requesting that community members recognize the importance of this restoration work and consider contributing now so that FoPP can reserve trees and shrubs while they are still available for our fall planting. Most important, your help will enable us to harness matching grants that will help fund tree work going into 2022.

Our goal is to raise a total of $60,000. This is the most ambitious goal ever for FoPP and will require many gifts, both large and small. We need to demonstrate to our larger donors a broad-based community effort. Please show your support for this community asset that we treasure.

Sincerely,

Tracy Gardner, President
Friends of Pastorius Park

Donate Today

Friends of Pastorius Park is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization, and the full amount of your contribution is tax deductible.

Donate online below or mail checks to:
Friends of Pastorius Park
P.O. Box 27158
Market Square Station
Philadelphia, PA 19118