- July 13, 2026
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Bicentennial Park had seen better days in late September 2024 after Hurricane Helene’s storm surge swallowed up the pocket park in front of Town Hall.
“The first time I saw it, it was just a muddy mess,” said Longboat Key Garden Club President Melanie Dale. “It was mud. It was sand. It was horrible.”
The park, following a recommendation from the local extension of the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, was left alone for months while rain washed the salt from the soil and resilient plants like palm shrubs and muhly grass naturally recovered.
Now, after the Longboat Key Garden Club's cleanup, fundraising and landscaping efforts, new sod is set to be installed, marking the completion of a nearly two-year-long cleanup push.
The cleanup began in early 2025 when Garden Club volunteers began uprooting drowned plants and replacing them with landscaping with varying bloom dates to add color to the park year-round. Right now, the firecracker plants are popping with bright red blooms on each corner of Bicentennial Park.
“We planted over 800 plants in Bicentennial Park in June, July and August,” said Garden Club member Susan Phillips.
Jasmine vines, bougainvillea trees and bulbine, thryallis, and exora bushes are a handful of the new flora at the park.
Dale said the Garden Club now has 275 members. Some members donate funds. In the wake of the hurricanes, generous donations by community members made it possible for the club’s annual fundraising revenue to be reserved for what Dale describes as “hurricane rebeautification.”
More than $40,000 was raised and has been used to re-landscape hurricane-damaged public spaces.
Other Garden Club volunteers get their hands dirty, literally. Dale said that, with many Longboat residents living in condos, volunteering with the club allows them to have the hobby of gardening without having a yard.
“(The Garden Club) have all types of activities through the season where you can come and work in (Bicentennial Park’s) garden or go walk through the park with a naturalist and we have monthly meetings where resources come in and talk to us about different things,” said Garden Club volunteer Kelly Shrout. “If you want to volunteer to organize field trips to the Celery Fields or anything like that, you can volunteer that way. Or you can get your hands in the dirt and start digging. We have a lot of people that enjoy doing that.”
The club that formed in 1969 has been involved in the landscaping of Bicentennial Park since Arvida Corporation donated the land in 1976. The park, named in honor of the 200th anniversary of the United States of America’s founding, was rededicated 50 years later on July 4, but kept the same name. Hundreds walked through the park during the recent rededication ceremony, inevitably leading to some necessary cleanup by Garden Club volunteers.
The town, which owns and maintains the park in collaboration with the Longboat Key Garden Club, is now ready to take the last step in hurricane repairs, replacing the grass that flooded and has not rebounded well in the 22 months since Hurricane Helene.
The town of Longboat Key contracted with Coastal Lawn Innovations to resod the turf portions of the park with a breed of grass known as Platinum Paspalum. The cost, $18,550, is funded by the Garden Club.
Paspalum grass variety is resistant to saltwater, making it a good fit for coastal environments. The same turf is used at the Town Center Green and the Longboat Key Club.
“They worked on the genetics of picking out the best turf,” Coastal Lawn Innovations Owner Shane Ritchie said. “They do that with all grasses. Different universities do different test pods.”
Coastal Lawn Innovations will begin work on the park in the coming weeks.
Bicentennial Park is located between Town Hall and Gulf of Mexico Drive at 500 Bay Isles Road. More information about the Longboat Key Garden Club can be found at lbkgardenclub.org.
