Friends of Fox Creek Park

10/25/2026

Announcing the Land Steward Grant Recipient 2026-27!!
Healing Roots Design (HRD) is delighted to announce the inaugural recipient of the Land Steward Grant: Friends of Fox Creek Park / Swannanoa Community Council.
Rooted in Swannanoa, the Swannanoa Community Council's mission is to steward their parks and facilities, foster connections with neighbors, and partner with local organizations for the benefit of our community. Friends of Fox Creek Park work together to tell a story of Restoration, Ecology and Community.
The goals of the grant supported project at Fox Creek Park:

To provide a teaching garden to show visitors what is possible using native and resilient species in the garden.
To enhance pollinator populations throughout Fox Creek Park and into the surrounding neighborhood.
To stabilize the creek bank and enhance wildlife habitat.
To mark the western edge of the park and provide a transition zone between the park and our neighbors' properties.
HRD is excited to bring plants and mentorship this project over the 2026-2027 year.

The Healing Roots Design Land Steward Grant Program supports the need for community gardens and resilient gardeners in Greater Asheville. The goal of the Land Steward Grant is to create or expand existing gardens in the communities where we serve, cultivating accessible and thriving habitats and food ecosystems for people and the planet. In providing plants and mentorship, Healing Roots Design seeks to accelerate a community initiative restoring soil health, water stewardship, healing, and strengthening the local productive perennial food systems.

10/19/2026

Announcing....

Healing Roots Design (HRD) is delighted to announce the inaugural recipient of the Land Steward Grant: Friends of Fox Creek Park / Swannanoa Community Council

Rooted in Swannanoa, the Swannanoa Community Council’s mission is to steward their parks and facilities, foster connections with neighbors, and partner with local organizations for the benefit of our community. Friends of Fox Creek Park work together to tell a story of Restoration, Ecology and Community.

The goals of the grant supported project at Fox Creek Park:
-To provide a teaching garden to show visitors what is possible using native and resilient species in the garden.
-To enhance pollinator populations throughout Fox Creek Park and into the surrounding neighborhood.
-To stabilize the creek bank and enhance wildlife habitat.
-To mark the western edge of the park and provide a transition zone between the park and our neighbors’ properties.

HRD is excited to bring plants and mentorship this project over the 2026-2027 year. We will share more about the project as it unfolds!

In the spirit of community,
Keri Evjy + Healing Roots Design

10/17/2026

We have some very exciting news to share!
This week, The Friends Of Fox Creek Park were named as the inaugural recipients of a new Land Steward grant program offered by Healing Roots Design, a local nature-based landscape design business.

Healing Roots is very nature based, focusing on low maintenance and regenerative landscapes, with an emphasis on native, edible and medicinal plants, pollinator habitats, and healthy soil.

The Healing Roots Design Land Steward Grant supports land-based projects in the Greater Asheville community, cultivating accessible and thriving habitats and food ecosystems for people and the planet

We will have much more to say very soon about the project that this grant will support, but for now, please check out Healing Roots Design here.

Experience Transformation with Healing Roots Design.

09/27/2026

ONE OAK TREE 🌳 SUPPORTS AN ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD OF WILDLIFE
It's not just a tree, it's one of nature's busiest apartment buildings.

When most people look at a mature oak tree, they see shade.

Wildlife sees an entire community. 🌳❤️

A single native oak can support hundreds of species, making it one of the most valuable trees you can plant for biodiversity. Its branches, bark, leaves, flowers, and acorns provide food, shelter, and nesting sites throughout the year.

Here's who calls an oak tree home:

🦋 Butterflies & Moths – Oak leaves are a food source for the caterpillars of hundreds of butterfly and moth species. Those caterpillars later become an essential food source for birds raising their young.

🐦 Songbirds – Chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, blue jays, wrens, and many other birds forage, nest, and raise families in oak trees.

🐿️ Squirrels & Chipmunks – Acorns are a rich source of protein and healthy fats, helping small mammals survive through fall and winter.

🦉 Owls – Large, mature oaks offer sturdy branches and natural cavities for daytime roosting and nesting.

🐝 Native Bees – Oak flowers produce pollen in spring, while rough bark and natural cavities provide shelter for many native bee species.

🦇 Bats – Loose bark and tree hollows create safe daytime roosts, while the insects attracted to oak trees become an evening buffet.

🦊 Foxes & Deer – Acorns become an important seasonal food source for many mammals.

🍄 Fungi, Mosses & Lichens – The trunk and roots support countless organisms that recycle nutrients and keep forest ecosystems healthy.

🪲 Beneficial Insects – Beetles, lacewings, spiders, and predatory insects help keep pest populations balanced.

Every part of the tree contributes to life.

Its roots stabilize the soil.

Its canopy cools the ground.

Its leaves feed the soil as they decompose.

Its acorns feed wildlife.

Its branches become homes.

Its bark becomes shelter.

In many ways, an oak isn't just growing...

It's hosting an entire neighborhood. 🌎💚

❌ A Common Mistake

Many homeowners remove old trees because they appear "messy."

But a healthy mature native tree often supports far more wildlife than dozens of young ornamental trees combined.

Sometimes the most important thing you can do for nature is simply protect the tree that's already standing.

🌳 If you have an oak tree in your yard, you're not just growing a tree—you may be helping hundreds of living creatures thrive.

09/13/2026

09/13/2026

Come on down to Bigfoot Books in Marion, NC and try their newest fall selection...

Whiffledodger Apple Chai

Then come on up to Fox Creek Park in Grovemont next April and celebrate another Fun-Tastic Whiffledodger Day with all of us!

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

08/29/2026

From The Caterpillar Lab: August is the heart of summer across much of the country, bringing a new wave of caterpillars that take advantage of mature leaves and a landscape transformed by age, wear, and tear. This is the season of leaf-edge mimics, large sphinx and giant silkmoths, and the often overlooked but undeniably fantastic slug
caterpillars. Slug caterpillars are the button-like, sea-slug-like, octopus-like, or glass-sculpture-like larvae of moths in the family Limacodidae. Each year we eagerly await their arrival on favorite hosts like oaks, cherries, birches, and redbuds, then head into the woods to find them - creatures that look plucked
from a tropical reef, casually eating leaves in our gardens and woodland edges.
How many can you identify?

08/25/2026

A few more images from Fox Creek Park this afternoon...