Village of Ocean Beach Environmental Commission Contact Us: VOBEC.FI@gmail.com    Sign up for our email newsletter
GARDENS
Every house in Ocean Beach is unique, and the gardens reflect that. To facilitate healthy gardens, we encourage planting indigenous vegetation, which are plants that originated or occurred naturally here: those plants that are accustomed to this harsh environment are more likely to survive weather and disease.

VOBEC has composed a list of trees that are indigenous to this area. We also host Garden Club meetings to discuss a variety of issues and topics related to gardening in Fire Island.
» click here for our list of trees indigenous to Fire Island

Pine Bark Beetle
The Southern pine beetle is small beetle that infects pine trees. It is about the size of a grain of rice and is red-brown to black in color. The Southern pine beetle is capable of damaging any pine tree including pitch pine, white pine, red pine, and in high infested areas hemlock and spruce. It does not infest hardwood trees. In New York, pitch pines have been attacked by the beetle more than any other pine tree species. The majority of the pitch pines killed by the Southern pine beetle have been in the Long Island Central Pine Barrens, an ecosystem which contains a variety of habitats that support many rare and unique species. For more information on how to indentify them, and what is being done about the infestation, please go to this link: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/99331.html

Giant Hogweed
Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) is a federally listed noxious weed. Its sap, in combination with moisture and sunlight, can cause severe skin and eye irritation, painful blistering, permanent scarring and blindness. Contact between the skin and the sap of this plant occurs either through brushing against the bristles on the stem or breaking the stem or leaves. For more information on how to identify and deal with this plant, please go to this link: http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/39809.html

VOBEC is a mayor-appointed commission whose purpose is to preserve and improve the quality of the natural and man-made environment within the Village in the face of population growth, urbanization, and technological change and their subsequent demands on natural resources. These areas of focus reflect this mission of maintaining and improving the quality of our life experience and our efforts to foster unified action on environmental problems.

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