Travis Jones Leads Troop 524 in Installing a Demonstration Garden at Mamie Lee!

When the Mamie Lee Garden was granted funds from the National Park Foundation in order to improve our garden infrastructure, the goal was always to simultaneously enhance community relations, resulting in a high-visibility model community garden in the nation’s capital, offering interpretive educational and outreach opportunities, and encouraging interaction with the park from both adult and youth members of the ethnically diverse and vibrant community living adjacent to our garden.

 

     The Garden in October 2008,                                               Same view May 2012 after
         before any improvements                                            installation of fence & planter beds

Last summer, Suzanne Richardson of Abbey Gardens landscape design and garden installation services began designing us a beautiful series of raised beds and a beautiful garden entryway, which included a fruit tree espalier, banana tree, and 3 whimsical animal topiary forms to welcome everyone into the garden.  However, one of the challenges of gardening on public land is of course getting the proper permits and approvals for every aspect of every project, and unfortunately most of the design was returned to us as being non-compliant with Park regulations. Suzanne was brilliant to work with, and she back to the drawing board and returned a new design featuring a variety of perennial non-woody native flowers and grasses, herbs, and annual flowers.

About the same time as we felt the specific varieties of proposed plants had been shown to so many employees that approval must be imminent, I was contacted by Rock Creek Park's Volunteer Program Coordinator, Scott, who had received a phone call from Ms Anita Jordan about her son who wanted to do his Eagle Scout project with Rock Creek Park, but near Fort Totten.  Her son, Travis Jones, is a member of Boy Scout Troop 524 under direction of scoutmaster Mr. Jamil Smart, and he was hoping to finish his project in time to achieve Eagle Scout honor at the next court of honor later this summer.  It seemed like a perfect match, so I met with Travis after our first garden cleanup back at the beginning of March to discuss the project.  He was eager to get started as soon as possible, but we were still waiting on the permit for construction of the raised beds. As time went on, we were both grew worried about meeting our deadlines, but thankfully the Rock Creek Park employees worked with us to expedite the permitting process (thank you all again!)


We worked for 11 hours on Saturday and finished up with a 4-hour workday on Sunday, with many Boy Scout moms and dads joining in to work alongside their sons.  



The final product is something we are all really proud of, and have gotten a lot of compliments already from many passersby on the pedestrian pathway.

 

June 2011 saw the first fence posts being installed    Same view May 2012 after completion of 
                                                                                                         fence & planter beds

Travis Jones and Troop 524 who installed the planters                      Proud mothers of Troop 524

It's also really gratifying to see the students from Mamie Lee School with their teachers out enjoying the new planter beds!  Suzanne had specifically chosen varieties of plants that have peculiar “sensory” qualities, so that the students can enjoy interacting with the planter beds as horticultural therapy.  Thanks to Ms Lechner for all your work in the garden, and for these photos!

                   Mamie Lee students enjoying the new planter beds