[Press Release] Camp Matecumbe Playground Receives Landscape Award



Melbourne, FL – The Florida Native Plant Society (FNPS) has designated October as “Native Plant Month.” During October, local society chapters host talks and hikes to natural areas to promote native plant communities and the environmental benefits to wildlife. In that educational spirit, FNPS created a landscape award program open to homeowners, businesses, government agencies, HOA’s, and community groups. FNPS received 19 applications for the 2023 landscape award cycle. Applicants across Florida had the opportunity to showcase their landscaped project and to highlight their garden.



Among the 19 applicants, a local winner for the “Garden of Excellence” was selected. The new Camp Matecumbe Playground, located within the 98-acre park in western Miami Dade County. Not only does the park have a historic connection for the many children refugees housed at Camp Matecumbe who escaped the Castro regime during the 1960’s, but the existing park includes a “significant pine rockland preserve.” Pine rockland habitat is considered globally critically imperiled with only 2% of this rare habitat left within the Miami Dade area according to the Florida Natural Areas Inventory. Development and fragmentation have taken their toll on this biologically diverse community. By creating a safe space for children to play in with natural elements and restoring a grassy all-purpose field to a pineland rockland community, this award-winning project showcases the best of both worlds.

“The landscape award judges were extremely impressed with the creativity of this park and the weaving together of the historic, the natural, and the physical activity elements,” said Lynda Davis, FNPS Executive Director, “kudos to the Miami-Dade Parks Recreation and Open Space Department for supporting this project.”

Camp Matecumbe Park Photo Album

www.fnps.org

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