I volunteer to do some gardening in James Madison Park, (whenever Ilse reminds me) . . . so Friday I got an email asking for volunteers to help plant some plants (this is only half of them on the wall).
I agreed to show up at 11:00 yesterday. But when I got there . . . we had a little weeding to do . . .
After a couple hours, things were looking a little better . . .
But there’s still more work to do. Another neighbor volunteered to weed more yesterday after we left and apparently got things even more cleaned up . . . Liz was braver than Ilse and I and did the weeding along the back edges!
There’s a nasty drop off on the other side that makes me a little queasy! Ilse and I are going back this evening to finish the weeding . . . then tomorrow we can finally plant and mulch.
This is only one of three gardens in James Madison Park that is taken care of by volunteers. For many years Ray Ray was faithfully taking care of this garden. Ray Ray is a WWII veteran who lived accross the street for over 50 years. He recently moved to a home that was easier to take care of and while he no longer lives in the neighborhood, he has stopped by while we are gardening. (When I can get the WSJ archives to work, I will post a recent profile of him here.)
Now, Ilse has taken over wrangling volunteers.
If you know anyone who would like to volunteer to help with gardening, please let us know. (brendakonkel@yahoo.com) No need to have skills, we can help you identify weeds from plants that we want to keep. All we need is some hands to help water, weed and plant from time to time. It’s actually fun, you get to meet all kinds of people who stop by and thank us for our work and ripping out weeds is far better than ripping off the head of the last person who made you mad! Besides, it looks great when we’re done!
(Sorry for the lower quality photos, they were taken with my camera phone since our good camera was recently stolen.)
