biodiversity

  When completed, the world-class 20-acre Phipps Ocean Park in Palm Beach will immerse visitors in an environment exclusively featuring Florida’s native flora and fauna and blur the line between expansive public park and a sustainable nature preserve. Raymond Jungles, FASLA, the landscape architect for the project, created a landscape design for the park that features 100% native plants to highlight the area’s past and showcase its commitment to a sustainable future. The goal for the project is to demonstrate on a large scale how native plants can be used to create beautiful, environmentally sustainable landscapes, and restore habitats for wildlife. Jungles was selected for the project for his firm’s focus on the preservation of natural ecosystems and the restoration of pre-existing ecologies. Jungles recently spoke about the environmental imperative of restoring coastal biodiversity to the Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach, who are raising funds for the revitalization of Phipps Ocean Park. The conversation explored the importance of native plants and restoring ecosystems and how that fits in with traditional horticulture.   Highlights of the Park include outdoor community spaces (a great lawn and a gathering area with nearly 20,000 square feet of open space), and a Coastal Restoration Center with 12,400 square feet of dedicated space for the propagation and growing of native species. Phipps Ocean Park is comprised of varied ecosystems that connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Lake Worth Lagoon Estuary. One of the most urgent issues facing the coastal park is the removal of decades of ...