McKenzie Park offers a lush landscape of floodplain forest where annual floods scour the forest floor with rushing water, ice, and floating debris. The frequency and intensity of these powerful events prevents all but a certain suite of flora from growing. You’ll find yourself in a forest of towering silver maples, while below them grow seas of jewelweed and wood nettle.

McKenzie Park, like the rest of the Intervale, has a long history of agriculture, dating back 10,000 years. Today there is an active hayfield which in recent years boasts a large tree-planting effort on the eastern side to re-establish a river buffer along the Winooski River.