City Agrees to Spend $6,000 Fixing Seeding Project at Barnum Park

Improvement projects at continue, after the Birmingham City Commission agreed to spend more than $6,000 improving the park's "no-mow" areas.

The work is part of the second phase of projects at Barnum Park, funded partly by the city and partly by the Community for Barnum Park, which works to raise funds to improve the park.

However, commissioners weren't happy that the "no-mow" project was back on the table. Johnson Hill Land Ethics was assigned to seed certain areas of the park with native plants last fall, all in an attempt to create a natural environment that wouldn't be mowed, like a traditional yard of grass must.

However,  Director Lauren Wood said the first time the area was seeded, the project "turned out to be a disaster."

According to Wood, Johnson Hill was a subcontractor of another company during the last project and wasn't able to control how the area was maintained. Now the company wants the chance to rectify the situation.

"They're the best to do this," she said. "If they weren't a subcontractor, like last time, things wold have been done differently."

"They know they're using public funds, too. They're embarrassed by what they did."

In total, the City Commission approved an expenditure of $6,393 to improve the no-mow areas, with Johnson Hill Land Ethics again taking the lead on the project.

 with a list of projects to improve the park, as well as a plan to raise money to fund a part of it. At that meeting, group member David Young said Community for Barnum Park had raised $73,000 to pay for park projects.

These projects include the creation of a sanctuary garden, improving the central area with tables and chairs and installing toddler swings. Over the winter, the group completed several of these projects, including installing the toddler swings.

The cost to the city, meanwhile, would be $41,000-$46,000 and include projects such as transplanting trees, fixing curbs and sidewalks and improving irrigation.

Monday, commissioners also voted to go ahead with several of these projects, including fixing a drainage issue east of the ballfield, expanding the sandbox and arranging for four locust trees to be transplanted closer to the center of the park.