What's Blooming: The Welcome Garden

 

What’s Blooming:  The Welcome Garden
by Selena Kunze, Horticulturist, Gardens on Spring Creek

The Welcome Garden was started in 2019 following completion of construction on the new building addition…or should I say it was pulled from the compacted earth, through parched patches of turf and crushed perennials. Initially coined “The Giant Pit”, lovingly of course, the garden began with removal of the suffering remnants of old beds, long unirrigated because of construction and frequently trampled by equipment and workers. The dwarf Forsythia, originally planted by former Curator Sherry Fuller as babies from her grandmother’s shrubs, were carefully dug and potted, while surviving perennials and grasses were relocated to nearby gardens or divided for our annual Spring Plant Sale. Big Daddy, the praying mantis sculpture made from repurposed metal dumpsters by Josh Jones, was commissioned to keep watch over the canal by the Theme Gardens instead, and volunteers painstakingly separated dormant Narcissus and Scilla bulbs from the weeds and grass that had been taking over the sculpture’s feet.

After all living plants were removed (apart from the inexhaustible bindweed), work began on the gravel pads that would eventually hold artist Joe McGrane’s mosaic benches. At almost five feet wide, the triangular concrete benches, inlaid with colorful designs of blanket flower, blue flax, columbine, primrose, and prickly pear cactus , required serious support. Small pits, eight feet wide or more, and eight inches deep were dug and then filled with compacted sand and gravel. (If you know who to ask, a very unattractive picture of me, driving the plate compactor with a popsicle hanging out of my mouth, can be found.)

Once the benches were in place, the bones of a flagstone path were laid out in the large, center section of the garden, dividing it into three chunks and allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the plants (eventually). Some of the stones were remnants from past projects…cap rocks from old walls used as steps, stone bench legs buried to look like boulders, bricks turned on end to fill in gaps. The remaining flagstone was locally quarried, carefully fitted together, and leveled. Next, work began on the strip stone border lining the entire north side of the garden. Viewed from the north or west, the border is meant to compliment the retaining walls and boulders in the Rock and Theme Gardens. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t think a sprawling plant grown over the edge of a stone wall is sexy?! 

It was at about this point that everyone thought plants would finally be going into the garden. But it was hot, SO HOT, and we were suffocating under the smoke and ash of the Cameron Peak Fire. What better time to “plant” boulders instead?! Using a hand truck, and occasionally the Toolcat (a utility work machine – like a forklift, only cuter), boulders were strategically placed in clusters to provide planting pockets and structure to the garden. In total, forty tons of rock went into that garden. Forty!

By fall of 2020, it was time. The flats and gallons and gobs of plants that I had been hoarding for over a year were about to be set free from their plastic prisons! I hauled cart after cart of plant material out of the nursery and onto the sidewalk by the bridge. This is my favorite part, putting together plant combinations, laying them on the ground in their approximate permanent locations, with the vision of what they will look like in six months…a year from now…in my head. There was a musician playing the guitar in the nearby Theme Gardens (I’m not making this up—there was really an event going on in the expanded part of The Gardens!). As an employee, I would have worked that evening for free.

By design, the garden is unfettered by a theme. It is to represent all the other gardens, an introduction to visitors as they pass through the lobby to the grounds on the other side. Native plants mingle with just-released, patented hybrids. And time-proven cultivars, grown on site and stashed in my piles before they could be sold at our Plant Sale, mix with varieties ordered from local nurseries on a whim. Some of the plants, requiring a little more water than the measly 15 inches we get a year naturally, are protected by wood mulch and sited at the junction of two sprinkler heads. Others loathe extra moisture, and happily clamber down shallow slopes in rock mulch, reseeding where they please, their progeny at the mercy of volunteers who help pull weeds in the months and years to follow.

Representing not only the other gardens, but also the team, the favorite plant of each staff member is included in the garden. Sherry’s Forsythias were some of the first plants to be installed—they anchor the bed on the north side of the sidewalk with their graceful form and cheery yellow, early spring flowers, contributing to the design even as the season ends when their foliage turns coppery red. The Crocosmia are for Mary, our Community Garden Outreach Coordinator…the bulbs were tacked onto an order by a friend at a local nursery, planted in 4.5-inch pots and grown through winter in our greenhouse. The apricot tree is mine. Apricots bloom early – too early – the flowers are often nipped by late frosts. But I don’t care if it never makes fruit. I love the shiny, ovate leaves and the smooth, reddish bark, pock-marked by grey lenticels. Michael, our Development Officer, wanted a bald cypress tree, a challenging variety to find in our area. Taxodium ‘Cody’s Feathers’ was ordered online and sits as sentinel on the slope by the retaining wall, scaring me through winter, but pulling through and leafing out this spring.

Behind the sign that begged forgiveness in big black letters for most of the season: “Pardon our mess, new gardens coming soon”, the garden slowly filled up with plants. After some time and several volunteer shifts spent planting, the new garden was finally here. The sign came down, The Giant Pit refilled. Welcome to the Welcome Garden!