Community Gardens: Beyond Gardening

Urban Impact, November 2001

Philadelphia's community gardens offer the opportunity to harvest fresh, locally grown produce and serve as havens for relaxation, respite, and social gatherings. Their presence makes a dramatic impact on the physical fabric of the urban environment. Throughout the city, residents also use their gardens to reach out to the surrounding neighborhood. The act of creating a garden brings people together, which can in turn foster community organizing around a range of issues. A garden can also function as an outdoor community center, where people of different cultures and social classes come together. It can be a beacon of hope for a neighborhood scarred by the symptoms of urban blight.

This issue of Urban Impact looks at the benefits of these shared spaces that go beyond gardening.

A Place for Neighborhood Outreach

In the spring, a graduate group of Philadelphia Green's Garden Tenders training series started the Lots of Love Community Garden in West Philadelphia. The garden site was previously used as a temporary home for a traveling bus-mobile soup kitchen. The bus group remained on the 600 block of Budd Street, just off Lancaster Avenue, for a few months, feeding the community's less fortunate, but eventually left after an incident of theft. Despite this disheartening act, residents Michelle Snow and Pete Golden were encouraged by how the neighborhood supported the mobile kitchen. They decided to start Lots of Love as a way to foster this renewed feeling of community spirit.

Though Snow admits that the group is "still just learning how to garden," their efforts have already made an impact. Neighborhood youth help tend its plots and attend weekly arts and crafts workshops. Others in the community have expressed an interest in teaching classes, such as photojournalism. As many as 20 neighbors now participate in Lots of Love. The site's barbecue pit, built by the bus group during their stay, is used to give away food. Gardeners from nearby Aspen Farms, a long-thriving community garden, have visited to share their knowledge and experience. Recently, Lots of Love caught the attention of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society's City Gardens Contest. In October, the gardening group was awarded first prize in the First-Year Community Garden category.

The neighbors have formed the Phoenix Rising Artists Cooperative and are in the process of attaining non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)3 status. And the group is in discussion with the Philadelphia Housing Authority to obtain three abandoned houses across the street from the garden for their cooperative. Reflecting on one of their overall goals, gardener Carol Bowers says, "We're looking to teach self-sufficiency, to revive basic skills that are often lost when rural people, who had to depend on the land for survival, move to cities."

Lots of Love organized two benefit music concerts, raising funds to help further their mission of creating, in effect, an outdoor community center that connects residents to gardening and art and provides food for the less fortunate. Unlike many community gardens, Lots of Love is never locked, and contains no garden plots designated specifically for individuals. It has not had any problems with vandalism. "People are starting to dream again," reflects Bowers.

A Community Organizing Tool

Not long ago, residents of the neighborhood north of Chinatown were faced with the possibility of a new professional baseball stadium being constructed literally in their backyard. While it was eventually decided to build the ballpark in South Philadelphia, the issue galvanized the neighbors. Last February, they officially formed the Callowhill Neighborhood Association, and turned to creating a garden for the community. After graduating from Garden Tenders in the spring, they transformed what had been a trashed vacant lot into the Hamilton Ridge Garden. Philadelphia Green provided technical assistance and materials like topsoil, woodchips and a picnic table. And clients from a local homeless shelter came out to help with the initial cleanup of the site. "The garden was a starting point," says Amy Hooper. "It brought people together and was a visible sign and message that we are a community."

A distinctive feature of Hamilton Ridge is the two billboards that stand at its center. "We had to obtain permission from the landowner to create the garden," says Sarah McEneaney, noting that the arrangement has worked out for both parties. "The owner continues to make a profit from the billboards—which are now surrounded by a colorful landscape instead of weeds and trash—and we get a garden for the neighborhood."

The Callowhill Neighborhood Association met with Councilman Frank DiCicco to advocate for additional green space in their neighborhood, one of many plagued by neglected vacant lots. (This community has a mix of residential and business elements, and recently has seen an influx of new residents due to the rehabilitation of several buildings into lofts and condo space.) The group also addressed safety issues, and with the Councilman's help, the City's Department of Streets provided additional street lighting. The Hamilton Ridge garden is now tended by a "hardcore group" of a dozen residents who also use it for neighborhood cookouts and as a meeting place for the Association's "green and clean" committee. "We get a lot of foot traffic by the garden," says McEneaney. "And just to see the looks on people's faces—it's made quite a difference." Hooper adds, "It's become a point of pride for the neighborhood."

A Center for Community Life

Warrington Community Garden functions in part as an informal meeting center for its diverse West Philadelphia neighborhood, where residents can garden, gather, and discuss community issues. "The garden provides a safe meeting place for people who wouldn't normally have the opportunity to interact," says gardener Stephen Pyne. Warrington is home to a "rainbow community" where whites, African-Americans, and Caribbean immigrants, from a range of cultures, ages, and economic classes, come together. Speaking about the common bond that nurtures such diversity, Pyne observes, "everyone appreciates fresh food."

Established in the early 1970s, Warrington is one of the city's oldest gardens, with over 70 people tending its numerous plots of vegetables and flowers. Philadelphia Green designated it as one of its Keystone Gardens, as it represents the long-term success of the city's community gardening movement. Philadelphia Green has assisted Warrington over the years, providing horticultural advice, as well as materials like benches, topsoil, compost, and barrels to catch rainwater. This fall, Philadelphia Green will help install an irrigation system. The garden also is a regular contestant in the Society's City Gardens Contest.

Each September, the group hosts a large flea market—its annual fundraiser. As part of this event, neighbors pay a fee to advertise their own "porch sales." The flea market typically raises $1,000 each year and helps engender a sense of community spirit. In the early 1990s, the Neighborhood Gardens Association/A Philadelphia Land Trust (NGA) helped secure title to the land. Last year, Warrington gardeners used monies from past fundraisers to make the last payment on their mortgage agreement with NGA, and now own the garden outright.

Warrington's leaders also network with a range of local organizations. The Cross Baltimore Tree Tenders group (formed through Philadelphia Green's Tree Tenders training series) helps look after the street trees in front of the site. The University of Pennsylvania funded the installation of three light posts in the front garden. And the neighboring Mariposa Food Cooperative has members who also garden at Warrington. When asked how it affects the community as a whole, Pyne simply says, "The garden and the community are interconnected."

Creating a Cherished Social Space

The Garden of Hope is a planned community space for residents of the Hogar de Esperanza hospice in North Philadelphia. Hogar is one of the projects initiated by Asociación de Puertorriqueños en Marcha, the local community development corporation. Slated for completion this fall, the Garden of Hope will include a dynamic mural created by the Department of Recreation's Mural Arts Program. It is the only open space at this 20-unit rental complex for special-needs residents and their families.

"When we met with the residents to explore what they wanted, they all agreed on an outdoor gathering place that could be used for social events and barbecues with their families," says Philadelphia Green project manager Carl Haefner. With input from residents, Philadelphia Green designed a sitting garden and passive recreation area. The garden taking shape has also sparked interest beyond Hogar. Residents from the surrounding neighborhood volunteered to help at a planting day, and a local daycare center's staff has brought over their kids.

Later in the fall, a dedication ceremony for the Garden of Hope will feature a choir performing music composed for the occasion. Haefner reflected that this project was about much more than bringing gardening to Hogar. "We're creating a needed and valuable outdoor community space for the residents," he says.

Learning How to Garden

In an effort to address a long waiting list of requests for new gardens, Philadelphia Green in 1995 launched its Garden Tenders basic training series, where residents learn how to start and sustain their own projects. Elements of the course include guidelines for site planning, horticultural skill development, and tapping into community resources (local businesses, churches, etc.). "What we do with Garden Tenders is empower people to create their own projects and instill in them a sense of ownership, so that their efforts last in the long-term," notes project coordinator Janet Carter.

Beyond Gardening

A garden not only preserves open space and offers a respite from the quick tempo of urban living, but also holds the potential for its gardeners to reach past the vegetable plots and flower borders to the larger community. It can be a gathering place to bring neighbors together. It can function as an outdoor community center, where young people learn arts and crafts, or where the less fortunate come for food. Residents become empowered, using their garden as a way to strengthen community bonds, driven by the desire and vision to grow these shared spaces beyond their borders. Ultimately, the garden becomes a catalyst for change, improving a neighborhood's overall quality of life.