I visited Lake Crabtree County Park. It has many trails and is therefore a good park to take the dogs for a walk. They currently have some stations set up around the park and lake where you can learn about types of native flora and water conservation and management.
One of the areas has a “green” butterfly garden. It had a pretty garden with low maintenance plants and it had a system to collect rain water to use in the garden. These are all efforts to decrease the park’s water usage and environmental impact. It also helps to educate park visitors on methods to create a “green” garden.
On one of the trails I found a wheel that taught you about the different trees along the trail. When you pointed the arrow at specific trees, the wheel would provide some basic information on that species. They also had a sign to explain an odd “three-legged maple tree”, that was caused by the seed of one species taking the nutrients from a decaying member of another species. This could support an argument for less management in the parks system. If park workers had taken away the dying stump, then the maple tree would have lacked the nutrients it needed to grow.
