‘No-mow’ schedule implemented at Bush’s Pasture Park

Jul 01, 2025

Visitors to Bush’s Pasture Park, just south of downtown Salem, will notice a change this summer.

The city’s Parks and Recreation department has announced it will not mow the upper oak grove, in the southwest corner of the park, until mid-September. The city also is expanding mulch rings around the oak trees, to protect their roots.

The aim is to encourage wildflower regeneration and protect the native seed bank, city officials say.

Already, grasses are knee-high in the area, and some camas are blooming.

City spokeswoman Kathy Ursprung said the changes are a trial run, and city staff will closely monitor the results to see what happens.

So far, she said, city staff in the park are getting positive feedback from users.

The city is asking park users to stay on the paths, but to otherwise not change their use of the park, she said.

The 90.5-acre city park is popular with walkers, joggers and picnickers. It’s the site of events including the Salem Art Fair & Festival, soap box derby races, the Awesome 3000, cross-country meets and more.

Management of the park has been leaning more toward ecological and historic preservation since 2019, when the Mission Street Parks Conservancy released a report on the health of the park’s centuries-old Oregon white oaks.

It showed that pedestrians and vehicles were compacting the soil around the oaks’ roots, cutting the trees' life expectancy. Among the biggest culprits was the Art Fair.

During 2020, the city of Salem developed an extensive Cultural Landscape Management plan for the park, which recommended phasing out the Art Fair from the oak grove. And in 2021, a massive ice storm hit the area, felling 20 of the park’s oaks.

Festival organizers made the decision to shift nearly the entire festival from the shaded path beneath the oaks, where it had been held for seven decades, to the open pasture north of the oak grove.

With changing weather patterns and without the shade provided by the oaks, festivalgoers and vendors complained about excessive heat. Last year, the festival changed from its traditional July dates to mid-September.

The city tentatively chose a mid-September mow date based on several factors, Ursprung said. Those include:

“It’s also worth noting that several non-native trees, particularly red oaks, in the upper oak grove are in visible decline,” she said. “Parks is considering a strategy to remove some of these trees over time, as they are prolific acorn producers and may compete with native regeneration.”

Parks staff stopped mowing a small section of the upper oak grove, south of Willamette University, in 2019. Since then, woody native shrubs have become established.

“We’ve also observed camas and other wildflowers continuing to emerge, potentially in greater numbers than in previous years,” she said.

The city’s management plan breaks the park into 14 management areas, with recommendations for each.

Additional recommendations for the upper oak grove include changes to circulation, events, furnishings and equipment to reduce impact to the trees’ root zones.

It recommends confining future events to paved surfaces, while maintaining lower-impact uses such as picnicking and small gatherings; planting native oaks and removing non-native trees; and making changes to the swing set and play area to meet ADA guidelines and place it outside of oak driplines.

And it recommends upgrading paved trails to support accessibility.

In recent years, park staff have experimented with leaving fall leaves in the upper oak grove and plan to build on that effort, potentially starting this fall, Ursprung said.

Parks staff also intend to bring the upper oak grove playground improvements into the city’s capital improvement plan process, she said.

“A key challenge is securing an appropriate funding source. For example, adding back swings will require site improvements, including one or more accessible routes, which increases the overall cost,” she said.

Park-wide, the city has begun implementing a more intentional review process to evaluate proposed actions against a range of considerations, Ursprung said.

That includes assessing how facility use permits and special events align with the goals and objectives outlined in the management plan, as well as those specific to individual management areas.

“We’ve worked with the sponsors of many regularly scheduled annual events to make adjustments that better support our overall park management and resource protection goals,” she said.

Tracy Loew covers the environment at the Statesman Journal. Send comments, questions and tips:[email protected] or 503-399-6779. Follow her on Twitter at@Tracy_Loew