Parks & Grounds

Responsibilities

The Parks and Grounds Department is responsible for the maintenance of all the Town's building landscapes and public spaces. This includes:

• 13.5 miles of greenways and trails
• 10 park sites and 8 playground structures
• 40 acres of sports fields, including 5 baseball fields and the Morganton Road Sports Complex
• Mount Hope Cemetery
• Downtown planters and trees

In addition to these duties, the Parks and Grounds Department also encompasses the responsibilities of the Town Arborist. The Arborist conducts tree inspections and assessments, evaluating overall tree health, safety, and any potential risk factors. If you would like to remove a tree inside the Town's right-of-way along the road adjacent to your property, please complete the Tree Removal Permit. 

Our team takes pride in ensuring these spaces are safe, clean, and enjoyable for all residents and visitors.

Trees are very important to Southern Pines
Southern Pines is an Arbor Day Foundation recognized Tree City USA since 1980, making our community one of the longest running award recipient communities in North Carolina.

The Town and the Appearance Commission's Tree Committee would like to thank everyone for their thoughts and comments regarding revising The Town's Illegal Tree Removal Policy.

Prescribed burns play an ecologically beneficial role in maintaining our parks and natural ecosystems.
The Town of Southern Pines is fortunate to have beautiful and historic stands of longleaf pines in many of our parks and natural areas. We recognize that the proper use of fire helps to preserve and protect the longleaf pine ecosystem. Learn more about why we intentionally use prescribed burns as a maintenance and preservation tool.

Spring Tips
Now that the azaleas have bloomed you have till around June 15th to prune them. Starting the 1'st of July they start setting their flower buds for next year. Encore azaleas are a bit different. For the most part they bloom twice a year Spring and Fall. Prune these immediately after they bloom. Fertilize all types of azaleas including rhododendrons now with a low nitrogen fertilizer. Some popular analyses are 5-10-30 and 5-10-10. You can also fertilize camellias as well with the same analysis. Both fall and spring blooming types. One (1) cup or 8 oz. per foot of height. To get some extra bloom time from your knockout roses cut them back by a third after they bloom and they will bloom again. Depending on how the weather acts you may be able to get a third bloom out of them. Fertilize them with the same fertilizer as your azaleas 5-10-30 or 5-10-10 one (1) cup or 8 oz. per foot of height. One last thing if you have centipede turf you can use the same fertilizer 5-10-30 or 5-10-10. You ONLY fertilize centipede in June.  You only need 5 lbs. of product per 1,000 ft. a 50 lb. bag will do 10,000 ft.  As always should there be any questions please call the Town of Southern Pines Building & Grounds office at 910-692-4863.