Working With the Mountain: Park Maintenance With a Purpose

Fri, 31 Jul 2026 23:28:45 GMT

If you live in northeastern Alabama, you know how quickly spring can turn into summer. In spring, the landscape seems to wake up almost overnight. Grasses turn green, wildflowers begin blooming and new growth appears across the region. By June, the heat and humidity have settled in, and that gentle spring growth is facing a much tougher season.

Summer rain here does not always arrive slowly. It often comes from isolated thunderstorms that drop a great deal of water in a short amount of time. At Cherokee Rock Village, that water can rush across sloping ground and thin, rocky soil before it has time to soak in. On the heavily used summit where the park’s campground resides, heavy rain carries exposed soil away and gradually carves pathways into the ground. With each storm, those pathways can grow deeper, allowing water to move faster down the mountain and cause further erosion around hiking trails, climbing areas and the surrounding landscape.

As we wrapped up the spring season, we paused mowing wherever naturally occurring native plants were growing, including throughout our camping areas. This gave native grasses and wildflowers time to mature, flower and form seed. As we move into August, we are beginning the next stage of our selective summer mowing practices. Using mowers and weed trimmers, we cut only the upper few inches of the vegetation, helping scatter mature seed while leaving as much growth standing as possible. This makes the camping areas more usable while maintaining the groundcover needed to protect the soil during the hottest part of the year.

Why Are We Mowing Differently?

Across the Cumberland Plateau, resistant sandstone forms broad uplands, ridges and rock outcrops, but the soil resting above it can be shallow and vulnerable when disturbed.

At first glance, parts of Cherokee Rock Village may resemble other forests in northeastern Alabama. What sets the park apart is its maze-like network of approximately 300-million-year-old sandstone formations, some rising as high as 200 feet. These formations do more than create the scenery for which the park is known. They shape how water moves across the summit, where soil accumulates, and which plants can survive. Together, these conditions make thoughtful management of the surrounding vegetation especially important.

Across the flat and sloping, soil-covered portions of the summit, poverty oatgrass (Danthonia spicata) and blackseed needlegrass (Piptochaetium avenaceum) grow alongside black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia spp.), tickseeds (Coreopsis spp.) and other naturally occurring vegetation. We are changing how and when we mow these areas, including campsites, trail edges and other heavily used parts of the park where repeated foot and vehicle traffic can compact the ground, thin the vegetation and leave soil exposed.

A uniformly mown landscape is often viewed as evidence that a public park is being well maintained. At Cherokee Rock Village, however, repeatedly cutting every open area before its plants can reproduce would work against the vegetation the summit needs. By delaying mowing, we allow existing grasses and wildflowers to complete their reproductive cycles. Their seeds can disperse into nearby openings, where favorable conditions may allow new plants and clumps to become established. Over time, this natural process can increase living groundcover in places where exposed soil would otherwise remain vulnerable to erosion.

The process is gradual and will not succeed in every bare patch, but it works with vegetation already adapted to the mountain’s shallow, rocky soils. Attempting to maintain conventional lawn grasses in the same places could require greater soil preparation, fertilizer, water and repeated maintenance. Selective mowing is not an absence of care. It is an effort to match our maintenance practices to the needs of this particular landscape.

Supporting Pollinators

Allowing native grasses and wildflowers more time to grow also creates additional habitat for bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, hoverflies and other pollinating insects. Flowers provide nectar and pollen, while taller vegetation and less frequently disturbed ground can offer places for insects to shelter, reproduce and overwinter. As different plants bloom throughout the season, they provide pollinators with more opportunities to find food.

These insects are an important part of the park’s larger ecosystem. By pollinating wildflowers, shrubs and other plants, they help those plants produce seed and fruit to regenerate naturally. Pollinating insects also provide food for birds and other wildlife. Maintaining connected areas of native vegetation therefore supports more than the plants growing within them; it strengthens the ecological relationships that help the landscape remain diverse and resilient.

Learning How Water Moves

Park staff have been photographing runoff during active storms and mapping bare patches, developing erosion channels and other places where water becomes concentrated. These observations are helping us understand how water moves across the summit and identify where soil loss begins. An area may appear relatively flat, but runoff can still move across compacted or sparsely vegetated ground until it reaches a rut, trail edge, depression or change in slope. Once concentrated, that water can begin carrying soil toward the adjoining sandstone glades and rock outcrops.

Although we do not mow or otherwise currently manage vegetation within the glades themselves, these communities are directly affected by what happens on the surrounding summit. Their soils may be confined to shallow pockets and narrow cracks in the sandstone, leaving very little soil available to lose and limited room for vegetation to recover. Maintaining stronger groundcover above them is one way we can slow runoff, retain soil and reduce the amount of sediment entering these fragile environments.

By combining strategic mowing with direct observation and mapping, we can adjust our maintenance practices based on what is actually happening across the summit. Strategic mowing will not solve every erosion problem, but it can help retain vegetation in vulnerable areas while showing us where additional drainage work, stabilization or changes in visitor movement may be needed.

Creating a Better Visitor Experience

The goal of selective mowing is not to make Cherokee Rock Village less accessible or enjoyable. It is to protect the landscape that makes the visitor experience possible. Healthy groundcover can help preserve campsites, trails and climbing access areas, while native grasses and wildflowers add seasonal color, attract wildlife and allow visitors to experience more of the mountain’s natural character.

Visitors can help by staying on established roads and trails, parking only in designated areas and avoiding driving or walking through areas where vegetation is being allowed to mature. Guests are also encouraged to photograph the flowers, grasses, pollinators and other wildlife they encounter and share noteworthy observations with park staff. These observations can help us better understand what lives here and how different parts of the summit respond to changing management.

What we are doing this summer is helping shape a more thoughtful future for Cherokee Rock Village. By documenting runoff, mapping erosion, identifying native plants and adjusting how we mow, we are learning how to better protect the park while keeping it open for camping, hiking, climbing and exploration.

Visitors are an important part of that future. By respecting the areas being managed differently, guests can help us protect the soil, plants and sandstone communities that make Cherokee Rock Village special. Together, we can leave the park healthier and better prepared for the generations who experience it next.

Interested in learning more about native vegetation, pollinators and thoughtful landscape management? These resources offer a good place to continue!

Continued Learning

Native Flowers for North Alabama Landscaping — Alabama Extension
Explore wildflowers suited to northern Alabama, including their growing conditions and value to pollinators and wildlife.
Deer-Tolerant Native Flowers and Grasses for Alabama Landscapes — Alabama Extension
Learn how native flowers and grasses can support pollinators and other wildlife while providing benefits such as erosion control.
Pollinator-Friendly Parks — Xerces Society
Learn how parks can adjust mowing and other maintenance practices while continuing to meet recreation, access and safety needs.
Loving Alabama’s Summer’s Harvest? Thank a Pollinator — Alabama Power
Read about research documenting 61 bee species and 86 flowering-plant species along selectively managed Alabama Power rights-of-way.
Soil Health — USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Learn how living plants, roots and healthy soils improve water absorption and help protect the ground from runoff and erosion.