Covering one small acre of Elings Park, there is a checkerboard field of black plastic tarps, sandbags, and cardboard.
It may sound like the park has reverted to its landfill days, but it’s all a part of the necessary first step in the Santa Barbara Botanic Garden’s three-year study and restoration of the landscape .
Tarps and cardboard are used for different methods of clearing the invasive weeds that have long flourished on the park’s South Bluff.