Dog Park in Everett, MA

Addressing a lack of shade and groundwater penetration into the city of Everett’s water table, we planted a variety of young plants and trees along walkways.

The city of Everett is over 97% impervious surfaces, and our goals with both of our public park projects were to transform hard packed city spaces into thriving ecosystems that provide food and shelter for native plants and pollinators. This Everett Dog Park site was the home of a General Electric manufacturing facility, which has been capped and buried under six feet of fill. We installed deep hugelkultur mounds with berms and swales on contour, planting a tree uphill of each berm and filling each berm with wood chips so the tree can access water and fungal foods available as they need. This is in contrast to the commonly practiced method to of planting the tree directly into the berm, with a swale catching water just uphill of it. Our thought process behind this decision is that the tree has a chance to dry out yet access water and nutrients when they are needed, rather than constantly.