HOURS
Sunrise to Sunset
WHILE ENJOYING BALLARD PARK PLEASE:
Beware of poison ivy & ticks
Carry out your trash
Keep dogs leashed
Stay on the trails
NOT PERMITTED AT BALLARD PARK:
Alcoholic Beverages
Archery
Bungee Jumping
Camping
Fires
Golf
Hunting
Illicit Drugs
Littering or Dumping
Motorized Vehicles
Rock Climbing
PARK ENTRANCES
There are three entrances -- one directly across from the Rogers High School parking lot, another at the corner of Hazard and Wickham Roads and a third on Hazard Road across from Ocean Heights Road.
OFFICES
Friends of Ballard Park:
320 Thames Street #274
Newport RI 02840
Phone: 401.619.3377
E-mail: info@ballardpark.org
Its unique features include two 19th century quarries and a diverse variety of native and introduced plant (see list below) species. Ballard Park allows for unobtrusive observation of the abutting 54 acre wildlife refuge by providing paths suitable for walking and bird watching.
The park is remarkably diverse. It forms an unfragmented block of habitat and open space with the contiguous 54 acre wildlife refuge, Gooseberry Beach, Newport Country Club and Brenton Point State Park.
In the Spring, Cooper Hawks and Northern Harriers (both state listed species) scan the meadow quarry for prey. Deer use the tall grass of the quarry meadow to bed and turtles amble into the meadow to lay their eggs in the summer months.
In addition to high rocky ledges and thickly wooded ravines, the park is home to a vernal pond and several small, seasonal streams. Parts of Ballard park have spectacular views out to the Atlantic Ocean.
Native trees, glades of ferns and wildflowers are also present creating glimpses of Aquidneck Island's 17th century past. In fact, in a city which has been continuously occupied since the earliest Colonial days, Ballard park contains an unusually pristine landscape which has both esthetic and historical value.
PLANT LIST
FERNS
Cinnamon Fern
Hay-scented Fern
Lady-fern
Marginal Wood Fern
Spinulose Wood Fern
Common polypody
New York Fern
Sensitive Fern
ANGIOSPERMS - Monocots
Skunk Cabbage
Soft Rush
Path-rush
Awl-fruited Sedge
Sedge
Spike-rush
Woolly Sedge
Witch-grass
Sweet Vernal Grass
Orchard Grass
Crabgrass
Manna grass
Velvet grass
Fall switch grass
Switchgrass
Bluegrass
Little Bluestem
Field garlic
Lily-of-the-valley
Day lily
Canada Mayflower
True Solomon's Seal
Yellow Flag
Catbrier
Bullbriard
GYMNOSPERMS
Yew
Red Cedar
ANGIOSPERMS - Dicots
Butter-and-eggs
Carpenter's Square
Common Mullein
Common Yarrow, Milfoil
Ragweed
Heart-leaved Aster
White Wood Aster
Bushy Aster
New York Aster
Small White Aster
Beggar-tick
Black Knapweed
Ox-eye Daisy
Horseweed
Grass leaved Goldenrod
Hawkweed
Tall Blue Lettuce
Pineapple Weed
Gall-of-the-earth, Wild Lettuce
Tall Rattlesnake Root
Silverrod
Rough leaved goldenrod
Tansy
Common Dandelion
Buttonbush
Rough Bedstraw
Japanese honeysuckle
Morrow's honeysuckle
Elderberry
Arrow-wood
Virgin's Bower
Creeping buttercup
Buttercup
Japanese Barberry
Celandine
Red Elm, Slippery Elm
Elm
Stinging Nettle
Northern Bayberry
English Oak
Northern Red Oak
Alder
Yellow Birch
Black Birch
Grey Birch
Japanese Knotwood
False Water Pepper
Common sorrel
Bitter Dock
Common St. Johnswort
Basswood
Garlic-mustard
Black mustard
Shepherd's purse
Whitlow grass
Peppergrass
Wild radish
Sweet-pepper Bush
Huckleberry
Highbush Blueberry
Big Toothed Aspen
Willow
Whorled Loosestrife
Common Shadbush
Hawthorne
White avens
Cinquefoil
Wild Black Cherry
Apple
Multiflora-rose
Swamp-rose
Blackberry
Bristly dewberry
Lupine
Red clover
White clover
Vetch
Autumn Olive
Water-willow
Purple loosestrife
Common Water purslane
Common Evening Primrose
Oriental bittersweet
Burning-bush, Wahoo
Winterberry
Virginia Creeper
Grape
Norway Maple
Sycamore Maple
Red Maple
Staghorn Sumac
Poison Ivy
Jewelweed, Touch-me-not
Devil's Club
Goutweed
Wild chervil
Hemlock-Parsley
Queen Anne's Lace
Black Swallow wort
Spearmint
All three basic types of rocks -- Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic --are found in Newport’s Only Nature Preserve, Ballard Park.
SEDIMENTARY
In Ballard Park, the one Puddingstone boulder is about the size of a small car and basically oval shaped located between the Southwest and Valley Trails. It is composed of many smaller, rounded stones, pebbles, cobbles and sand cemented together.
METAMORPHIC
The Price Neck Formation outcrop looks like a hill of stone off to the side of the Swamp Maple trail near where the board walk ends. The rock is gray and composed of very fine minerals, much finer and smaller than the minerals that make up the Newport Granite or the Puddingstone.
IGNEOUS
The majority of rock found in Ballard Park is Newport Granite. There are also slight differences in the sizes and shapes of the minerals making up the Newport Granite throughout the park, these are the result of differences in the conditions when the granite first formed.
