Forest Hills Park updates: Nov. 2 Spooktacular, new officers and new, improved rain garden

Friends of Forest Hills Playground has new officers who are carrying on an old tradition: the decades-old Halloween bash at the park:

Forest Hills Playground’s Halloween bash returns for another year! The 2019 Halloween Spooktacular/Fall Fest is from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, November 2.

This party at the park just east of Connecticut Avenue on Chesapeake Street NW gives the little ones another chance to wear their Halloween costumes. Grownups too, if you’re so inclined. The amazing Abracadabra Alex will add a touch of magic.

Calling all bakers! The Spooktacular is also a Friends of Forest Hills Playground fundraiser. Proceeds from the Spooktacular bake sale go toward park events like this one and improvements like the newly weeded and replanted rain garden by the amphitheater.

Volunteers needed! Sign up here to let us know you plan to bring a sweet treat for the bake sale (store-bought tastes just as good!), take a shift at the bake sale table, and stay for a few minutes afterward to help pick up trash and pack up for the day. Student Service Learning (SSL) hours are available for all of our events. Contact us at [email protected] for more info.

New officers and members

Friends of Forest Hills Playground elected new officers at the organization’s September board meeting: Erin Bryan (president), Chappall Gage (vice president of events), and Gillian Marlowe (treasurer). They are all new to the board this year, as is Leah Frelinghuysen, who is taking on a government relations role and will be acting secretary until another volunteer steps up. The previous officers, Kim Farmer, Kirsten Metzger, Damian Winters and Tracy Johnke, are remaining on the board.

New, improved rain garden

If you’ve walked through Forest Hills Park in the past month, you’ve seen one of the park’s two rain gardens undergo a major transformation. You’ll recall that the September 7th concert at the park was raising money for the project. At the time, the rain garden next to the amphitheater looked like this:

A mess of invasive mulberry trees and other weeds. (photos courtesy of Friends of Forest Hills Playground)

Two Girl Scouts and DPR contractor Carol Herwig, a rain garden specialist, led the rehabilitation project, which started with cleaning out this weedy mess on September 21st.

The project leaders and community volunteers left the native and beneficial Joe Pye weed and not much else.

And on October 5th, they returned to replant the rain garden with native plants: Joe Pye weed, mountain mint, juncus, and yellow flowering senecio, rudbeckia (black-eyed Susans) and goldenrod.

Girl Scouts Olivia Ensign, Kareena Kayal and other volunteers took turns watering when the planting was done.

The water, badly needed due to drought conditions, was provided by The Brandywine apartments across the street. The new plants will continue to need regular watering and attention for at least the next year. The mulberry trees that were crowding the original Joe Pye weed are particularly aggressive. The goal, says Herwig in her wrap-up report on the project, is to have a densely-planted space that will crowd out the invasive weeds.

“It will flower from spring through fall, welcome butterflies, bees and other pollinators to an urban setting, welcome children and other visitors to the site and be a place of respite,” Herwig writes.