Elings Park is the site of a new collaboration with Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, partners, and community volunteers, which allows park visitors to see firsthand how California’s native plants can transform a landscape.
Work has begun on the park’s South Bluffs to remove the invasive plants from a 1-acre (.4-hectare) area, which will be planted later this year with species native to the region. Science experiments will compare the abundance, diversity, and composition of plant and animal life both before and after the transformation, compared with the areas still planted with invasive species.
Even though Elings Park is mere steps away from thousands of residences and has nearly a quarter million visitors annually, a large portion is undeveloped. Many people who play in its popular sports leagues or attend concerts or weddings here have never visited the scenic South Bluffs.
During the Spanish period and into the last century, this area was used for livestock grazing. Later, parts were plowed under and planted with beans. After that venture failed, the hills became overgrown with invasive, nonnative plants — and was once the domain of a feral mule who reportedly chased local children!
Elings Park was just 97 acres (39 hectares) when it opened in 1985, thanks to a community campaign that turned the former landfill into a free public park. In 1994, it expanded to 230 acres (93 hectares) with the purchase of the adjacent property, which is now called the South Bluffs.
The site of the Landscape Transformation Project is next to the park’s Sierra Club Trail. This trail is popular with walkers, runners, mountain bikers, and dogs and their humans (members of the Elings Park Dog Owner Group, EPDOG) for its shady oak (Quercus spp.) groves, sunny, ocean-facing hilltops, and spectacular views.
The hope is that park visitors will leave inspired and begin transformations in their own backyards and in landscapes across Santa Barbara County and beyond. Plus, the project is being documented for future reproduction in other local areas. These photos offer an intimate overview of its first steps.
The Landscape Transformation Project at Elings Park began in May 2023 with a bioblitz — a three-hour assessment of the pollinators, birds, bugs, and plants (both native and invasive) on part of the South Bluffs. Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s Matt Guilliams, Ph.D., the Tucker systematist and curator of the Clifton Smith Herbarium (holding phone), trains "blitzers" the iNaturalist app, which will be used throughout the program to store data.Photo: Julia McHugh
May also marked the first of eight free Nature Walks to explore Elings Park’s biodiversity. Led by Santa Barbara Botanic Garden experts, the monthly walks focus on the park’s plants, pollinators, or birds. The Garden’s Terrestrial Invertebrate Conservation Ecologist Sarah Cusser, Ph.D. (center), encourages a close-up look at plants growing on the hilltop.Photo: Julia McHugh
A series of public forums in August and September invited community members to learn more about the project and give input on the plans. The forums were held online via Zoom and in person at Santa Barbara Botanic Garden and at Elings Park (above). They were led by Denise Knapp, Ph.D. (center), the Garden’s director of conservation and research, and Scot Pipkin (left), the director of education and engagement.Photo: Julia McHugh
The 1-acre (.4-hectare) project site was delineated into eight sections, which were then cleared. Half of them are covered with black plastic to discourage nonnative weeds. The other half received sheet mulch — layers of cardboard, woodchips, and mulch. Which will work better? The answer will become clear by the time planting begins in December.Photo: Julia McHugh
Community volunteers, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden staff, and personnel from project partner Channel Island Restoration used pickaxes to dig trenches along the edges of each plot, where the edges of black plastic tarps were buried to help hold the tarps down. It took a lot of effort but was ultimately satisfying to break through the hardpacked soil. Photo: Julia McHugh
“Native plants lay the foundation that support all life on Earth. Through this project, we’ll demonstrate, through science, the value of native plants and a healthy ecosystem,” says Denise Knapp, Ph.D., Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s director of conservation and research, who oversees the project. “This multifaceted project also helps us to determine best practices for restoring the rest of the South Bluffs.”Photo: Julia McHugh
The restoration site is adjacent to a popular South Bluffs trail offering panoramic ocean and city views, including the Santa Barbara Mission and former Saint Anthony’s Seminary (far left). Time-lapse photographs and video footage to document the project’s process will be taken from the permanent bench in the photo, facing the project site.Photo: Julia McHugh
A planting section is nearly “tarped,” with sandbags to hold the black plastic in place. For the next few months, the sun’s radiant energy will basically cook the invasive plants and their seed banks underneath the tarp. The plastic is removed in December when planting of California’s native plants begins. Some of the invasive seeds may survive, so there’s weeding and watering through May to get the plants established.Photo: Julia McHugh
Channel Islands Restoration’s Wyatt McLean (left) joins Denise Knapp, Ph.D. (center), and Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s Maintenance Associate Dennis Rose (right) on the first day of “tarping.” Volunteers are still needed to continue the restoration work, which will include building metal gopher traps, un-tarping and preparing the sites for planting, assisting with the planting itself, weeding, watering, and tending to the native plant seedlings as they grow.Photo: Julia McHugh
May also marked the first of eight free Nature Walks to explore Elings Park’s biodiversity. Led by various Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s experts, the monthly walks focus on the park’s plants, pollinators, or birds. They set the stage for discussions about the impact that landscape renovation can have on an ecosystem.Photo: Julia McHugh
