Plant invaders choke North Miami’s Enchanted Forest Park. There’s a battle to stop them

Gwen Burzycki is hard at work on a Sunday. The 69-year-old botanist came to North Miami’s Enchanted Forest Park along with 16 others to clean out weeds and continue a months-long project to build a butterfly garden. She wore a bright red shirt that read “Keep calm and study on” and drove a green SUV stuffed with gardening supplies.

Months in the planning and construction, the garden is at the heart of plan to save this 22-acre natural gem just blocks off busy Biscayne Boulevard.

“What we are trying to do is something completely different,” she said while handing hefty footlong chunks of concrete edging to other volunteers dressed in shorts and T-shirts. “It should attract a lot of insects and attention.”

Burzycki and her group are just part of the effort to save the Enchanted Forest, which was founded decades ago to preserve a patch of South Florida’s natural past in the middle of the city. When first created, the place was a bit of old Florida, filled with native plants such as the stylosanthes hamata, often called cheesytoes. It is a host plant for the barred yellow butterfly, which has called the area home for centuries.

But the park’s natural ecosystem has been under assault. For the last two years, volunteers have spent weekends clearing many of the park’s numerous walking paths and playgrounds of invasive plants such as arrowhead and air potato. With only one full-time employee, the park has had to rely on plant lovers much of the maintenance and eradication of the invaders.

Lola Heasley has been working in the park for over 26 years. The Enchanted Forest’s manager and naturalist has dedicated her life to the preservation and management of the NE 135th Street facility. She is currently the only full-time employee at the park, where she runs educational programs and oversees the removal of invasive plants.

“When you get these invasive plants that come in, they displace the natives, and they choke everything out,” said Heasley. “And they displace the animals that are used to living there because they kind of crowd them out and take their food source.”

According to a study by the University of Florida, the state currently has tens of thousands non-native plant species and ranks at number four in the nation among areas most at risk due to invasive species.

“Invasive plants are one of the main causes of extinction for native plants and animals,” said Heasley.

One such species is the dioscorea bulbifera, more commonly referred to as an air potato. Originating in Asia and Africa, the plant was introduced to Florida over 100 years ago for medicinal purposes after seeds were leaked from a lab. Since then, it has spread rapidly throughout the state. The plant grows up to eight inches a day and thrives in warm climates.

Enchanted Forest Park today is filled with air potatoes. The exotic vine produces heart-shaped leaves that wrap around the native plants and weigh them down. Then it produces potato-shaped balls that eventually fall to the ground sprouting more leafy vines.

“So even though it goes dormant in the winter, and the potatoes are easy to pick up, it will completely consume the park over the summer and everything will be covered in air potatoes,” said Heasley.

Then there is the arrowhead plant, also called syngonium, an invasive species that is coveted as a decorative. This common indoor plant has made its way out to Florida’s native ecosystem.

“If you go to Home Depot, almost all of the things that we’re eradicating, they actually sell there for people to plant in their yards,” said Heasley. “If developers had to use at least 75% native plants, the world would be a better place.”

Arrowhead can be terrific house plants as the bright leaves add color to indoor spaces, and make for a great natural air purifier. But out in Florida’s wilderness, they are a menacing threat.

“Because even though it [syngonium] grows very slowly, it has tendrils that come out of the side of the vine,” said Heasley. “You have to remove all the tendrils out of the ground. If you leave pieces of it, then it can grow back.”

Despite the volunteers’ massive efforts, the park is in desperate need of daily eradication, and many invasive plants, like the syngonium, must be removed by hand.

This past Super Bowl Sunday, Burzycki and the other volunteers showed up at 9 a.m. to spend their day pulling out vines, getting their hands dirty, and sweating under the Florida sun. It was a mixed crowd that included families spending the day together and teenagers looking to connect with nature.

Heasley and the volunteers are hoping for more funding and grants to further the eradication efforts, as well as to educate the public and get more volunteers.

They also hope to preserve the butterfly garden, which they will work on again on March 25, when a native plant day festival will be held at the park.

“I wish people would pay a little more attention,” said Burzycki. “I once saw an art exhibit that photographs our natural areas and when I looked closer, I saw they were all invasive plants. Only 10% of the pictures were actually Florida native plants.”

To volunteer at Enchanted Forest Park you can visit handsonmiami.org and sign up for their clean-up days every second Sunday of the month or contact Heasley directly to set up a volunteering time at lheasley@northmiamifl.gov or call (786) 255-2995.

This story was produced as part of a partnership between the Florida International University Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media and the Miami Herald.

This story was originally published February 17, 2023 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Plant invaders choke North Miami’s Enchanted Forest Park. There’s a battle to stop them."