2024 PIAC Submission: Nature Playground, Basketball Court, Stone Restoration

Since it was founded the Roanoke Park Conservancy has worked with the parks department to seek PIAC funding for improvements throughout the park with great success. These requests have aligned with the 2011 Master Plan, and benefited from the strong support of nearby neighborhood associations.

The focus of the past few years has been improving the "south meadow," the lobe of the park southwest of the community center. These improvements include: renewing the tennis courts, new sidewalks, additional lighting, and entry pillars and signage. The Conservancy has been working with the parks department to provide design intent drawings for the many south meadow projects which have received funding. With that in hand, they will be able to put projects out to bid with more accuracy and fidelity to the intentions of the original PIAC requests. See our 2022 PIAC article for an explanation of the South Meadow elements. 

Our 2024 PIAC request included:

Volker Spring Nature Playground. Providing natural enhancements and outdoor play experiences on the west side of the park. Currently, the area lacks activities outside of a lone swing, nature trails, and winter sledding. We proposed the addition of a boardwalk leading from Karnes to a spring overlook, then to a naturally flat area where a nature playground could be constructed. Log scrambles, boulders, net climbers, and stumps could entertain kids while surrounding hammocks and seating could accommodate caretakers and everyone else wanting to enjoy the health benefits of nature. The "naturally flat area" is above the runout of the winter sledding. This area is accessible from the Volker neighborhood via the trail entrance off Wyoming or the Park Court staircase. 

Basketball Court. The well-used court southeast of the volleyball court is in need of a refresh. We requested a slightly larger footprint for a half court and a higher strength goal for longevity's sake. The current court is apparently asphalt and cracking at the edges. Sports court surfacing matching the tennis/pickleball courts was requested. 

Stone Wall / Pillar Restoration. Stone is an integral part of Roanoke Park's charm – both its natural stone bluffs and historic masonry walls and pillars. Historic photographs of these stone walls and pillars show the appreciation of these elements decades ago. However recent decades have seen an insuffient level of maintenance and a recent instance of vehicle damage. If left to further deteriorate they will only get more costly to repair or slowly disappear over time. 

Click the images below for pdfs of the 2024 request.

FROM invasive wintercreeper monoculture TO Diversity and Ecological Restoration.

WINTERCREEPER WEDNESDAYS
Twice a month, thru 2024

Twelve volunteer work sessions from early May through late October. 

Why? - Because wintercreeper snuffs out native plants (and trees).

Wintercreeper on the trees will continue to spread seeds of this aggressive invasive plant throughout our park and neighborhoods unless we get it under control by cutting and treating. Read more on this site about why wintercreeper is bad.

Our 2023-2024 Rebuild KC grant funded ecological restoration contractors did work on the park's "best 6 acres" a couple times. After a walk-through with KCMO Parks' environmental manager, they were tasked with using cut/treat methods on bush honeysuckle, spraying ground carpets of wintercreeper, and basal bark spraying buckthorn and tree of heaven. This was a dramatic frontal assault on the park's worst invaders. 

But they didn't get the wintercreeper growing up trees. That's up to us volunteers.

See the "Best 6 ac -Volunteers" map for areas and notes with a focus on what us volunteers can do. Orange markers/areas were recently done. Red markers/areas are not yet done. The Wintercreeper Wednesday work sessions will focus on getting all the wintercreeper growing up trees within these areas as noted on the map. Burroughs Audubon recently posted about the inspiring rebirth of the Shirling Sanctuary in Swope park, using the same methods we're employing: contractors spraying the wintercreeper in September and volunteers cutting/treating it from the trees year 'round: facebook.com/AudubonKC/post... Another inspiring story is the KC Parks Ambassadors group that finished cutting ALL the honeysuckle from Gillham Park in 2023.

To find out about similar work efforts, message RoanokeParkKC on Facebook or on Instagram, or email Chris DeLong at nature(at)roanokeparkkc(dot)org.
Join the email from our home page and check [✔️] "Interested in Work Days" to get notice of these and other cleanups and habitat improvement events.

These events were added to the calendar of KC Parks Ambassadors. If you aren't a member, leaders Kelly Turner (Jander) and Sara Becker are inspirations and would love it if you joined them. 
Learn about it here: https://kcparks.org/volunteering/ 

Let’s form a community of Wintercreeper Warriors!

Session #1 Report (May 8)
Thanks to ADAM for helping Chris with the first event. We exposed a neat rock face topped by a rock wall dating to circa 1900 at the property line. Four volunteer hours logged.

Read more ...

Click for the Roanoke Park Trees and Trails Google MapExplore Roanoke Park’s trails and help find the biggest trees in the park!

Roanoke Park's volunteer naturalist Chris DeLong has combined data from the 2012 tree inventory with lots of on-the-ground scouting to produce a custom Google Map you can use to explore the park. The trail paths on this map are more accurate and complete than can be found anywhere else. Markers for the park’s largest trees and others have been added to the map with each containing ID and info in a popup. Links to Missouri Botanical Garden pages are included (but are only clickable on desktop browsers).

Enjoy the trails and go find those trees!
Roanoke Park Trees and Trails
https://maps.app.goo.gl/h3p9QqMunanr4CVq5?g_st=ic

You can help improve this map by finding the trees and emailing Chris at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with discrepancies. Some of the 2012 champions may have fallen down, or were misidentified initially. While the 2012 Tree Inventory was a snapshot in time, we’ll try to continually update this map with your help.

Click for a video explaining Roanoke Park Trees and TrailsEven in just the process of rolling out this map several corrections and discoveries have been made. The 2012 second place chinkapin oak is now the park champion, after the former champ apparently got hit by lightning. Yikes! (It looks like it is trying to survive, despite dead stripes down two sides.) The old champ is west of Karnes, and the new champ is by the paw paw patch above the brick road, right above the lower trail. Also it looks like we have a kind of Hickory tree we didn't know about. The champion "hickory" in 2012 appears to be a Shellbark Hickory, Carya laciniosa. That species is also called Kingnut, for having the largest of all hickory nuts. We'll try to beat the critters to some to help confirm the identification.

You could also add tree observations to iNaturalist if good ID pictures can be taken, adding to our Roanoke Park Biodiversity Project: inaturalist.org/projects/roanoke-park-biodiversity What are good ID pictures? More than one, clear and hopefully focussing on distinguising characteristics: the "key things" that separate a tree species from close relatives. If you don't know and are learning, take a variety! iNaturalist lets you upload four photos initially, but then you can keep hitting the + icon and adding more. Bark, leaves, flowers, fruit or seeds, twigs, winter buds - all can show useful ID characters.