Roosevelt Underpass Garden is what I’ve been calling the garden on both sides of the sidewalk running through the underpass into Roosevelt Center.  It sheds light on one of several features in Historic Greenbelt now considered icons of our unique city plan. And we Greenbelters love our underpasses!

This month the garden is at its peak for fall color, thanks to its 50+ full-grown oakleaf hydrangeas. They’re the shrubs with big red leaves in this photo.

Greenbelters have been enjoying these gorgeous oakleaf hydrangeas, requiring no maintenance at all, for decades. They’re great four-season plants and we’re lucky that whoever planned this landscape went all-in, planting over 50 of them. (They’re native to the Carolinas and southward.)

Removing the invasives

Back in January of 2024 several members of the Greenbelt-Beltsville Garden Club took on the job of removing English ivy from trees near the Mother and Child statue in the Center, which I blogged about in “Let’s get the English ivy of our trees.”

While other volunteers were working around the statue, I moseyed over to the underpass, where I saw large trees dripping with English ivy.  Here’s a couple of them.

So to no one’s surprise who knows me, I became obsessed with the removal of that damn ivy for over a year, after which I can happily report that the ivy and other invasives on the ground are 99 percent gone. And it is sooo satisfying! Gone also is the poison ivy, thanks to my friend Catherine Plaisant, who declared her immunity to poison ivy and went right to work removing a large mass of it. (John Klinovsky volunteered too, and was dressed appropriately).

Weirdly, the masses of unwanted plants were only on one side of the underpass garden – closest to the Sunoco. So one side was pristine – no weeds, just mulch – but the other side was a total mess. Go figure.

Pruning

The garden is full of grand hydrangeas like these, seen in early May. But they have enough space to grow full size here, so they just needed all the dead bits removed. Carloads of dead branches.

I also uncovered a large viburnum shrub that had been smothered by a shrub honeysuckle and grape ivy and other vines. It’ll take years, but eventually this old viburnum can have a nice shape again. Anyway, I love a pruning challenge!

Planting spring-blooming perennials

Just recently, the Greenbelt-Beltsville Garden Club created another work event to plant the 50 Packera aurea (a/k/a golden ragwort) that the club donated for this spot. Here’s Melissa Mackey and Lesley Frank planting them while Mary-Denise Smith and I were working in another area.

To illustrate how they’ll look next spring, here’s a shot of Packera aurea blooming in my back garden. The mostly evergreen perennial is native to this region, can take full shade, and spreads profusely. It’s my favorite native perennial.

Next, the underpass needs some love!

All those beautiful plants AND our beautiful and historic public square are at the end of this very ugly underpass. But on the bright side, its historic importance and prominence make it an exciting spot for public art!

I like to imagine all that concrete covered by an exciting mural that welcomes walkers into the heart of Historic Roosevelt Center (and includes the Roosevelts somehow).

Just last year Eleanor Roosevelt High School students created a wonderful new mural, shown here. With advancements in technology that prevent vandalism, murals are enriching communities everywhere. How about here?