A stretch of sandy trails winding beneath towering longleaf pines at Mobile Botanical Gardens is showing fresh green growth this spring, the result of a prescribed burn carried out in the garden’s longleaf preserve on March 11. The controlled fire, conducted just before COVID-19 restrictions began reshaping daily life across the region, was the product of a partnership between Mobile Botanical Gardens, the Alabama Forestry Commission, the Longleaf Alliance, The Nature Conservancy and the city of Mobile.
Longleaf pine forests once dominated much of the South Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain, sustained for thousands of years by lightning-sparked wildfires that periodically swept through the understory. That natural cycle cleared out competing vegetation, opened the canopy to sunlight and encouraged the germination of native wildflowers and grasses. Today, land managers replicate that process through carefully planned prescribed burns, since development and fire suppression have eliminated most of the naturally occurring fires that once maintained the ecosystem.
At the botanical garden’s Longleaf Treasure Forest, the burn has already transformed the landscape. Much of the ground beyond the trails is blackened with charcoal, but new shoots are pushing up through the soot in what garden staff describe as a carpet of “green snow” spreading across the sandy hillsides. The fire-adapted longleaf ecosystem depends on this kind of periodic burning to thrive, supporting everything from the high pine canopy down to the gopher tortoise burrows that riddle the forest floor.
The preserve remains open to visitors from dawn to dusk daily, free of charge, with no scheduled programming or admission gate. Sandy footpaths loop through the pines, past benches positioned at scenic overlooks and storyboards posted at trailheads that explain the site’s ecology and history. Garden officials have encouraged residents to use the forest as a quiet, socially distant escape during the pandemic, noting that visitors can walk the trails for the first time or the hundredth time and still find something new. The longleaf forest sits on the left side of the property as visitors enter the Mobile Botanical Gardens grounds at 5151 Museum Drive.
Mobile Botanical Gardens has also adjusted how it is running its annual spring plant sale this year because of the pandemic. The Plantasia Spring Plant Sale, normally an in-person shopping event, has moved online for 2020. Shoppers can browse the available inventory at MBGrebloomshop.com, place an order and have garden staff select and bag the best available plants before arranging a curbside pickup at the garden, allowing customers to avoid close contact while still supporting the nonprofit and stocking up on plants for the growing season.
Garden leaders say the longleaf preserve and the plant sale together reflect an effort to keep the community connected to nature even as other public gathering spaces have closed. With no ticket booth, no set showtimes and no crowds to navigate, the forest offers an outdoor option for residents looking to get outside safely, while the retooled plant sale gives home gardeners a way to keep their own yards blooming through the spring.