A park in Miami Beach, Florida just got a big upgrade!

The Environmental & Sustainability Department of the City of Miami Beach installed 60 TreeDiapers® treemats around young trees in Marjory Stoneman Douglas Ocean Beach Park. The project, which started in February, 2019, has been a success. 

TreeDiaper® treemats helps cut maintenance costs by reducing need for manual watering, while making better use of natural rainfall by storing it for later. Easily covered by mulch, TreeDiaper® treemats are discrete to better conserve the beauty of a city’s green spaces. TreeDiaper® treemats improves park maintenance by reducing the need to disrupt park activity with frequent watering. In addition, sandy soils found in Florida and other coastal areas are susceptible to extreme moisture fluctuations, but TreeDiaper® treemats prevents some water from being wasted. Although coastal cities on average receive more rainfall than inland areas, porous soils allow stormwater to drain away quickly, leaving the growing environment dry soon after a storm. 

Park trees in Miami Beach survived through the remainder of the winter and are thriving in the spring. Even in the heat the upcoming Miami Beach summer – sometimes exceeding 90°F (32°C) – these park trees will stay cool and green despite reduced watering. Before TreeDiaper® treemats, these trees were every day. Now, they are watered once a week; we believe that watering could be cut back even further in the future. We recommend checking on soil moisture under TreeDiaper® treemats mats once every two weeks and watering only when needed. 

TreeDiaper® technology is the best solution for issues with water loss that are found in areas with porous, sandy soils:

1. Slowly releasing water stored in the TreeDiaper® treemats
2. Suppressing weed growth
3. Replenishing with rainwater
4. Reducing other water losses through evaporation, runoff
5. Reducing nutrient loss