Learn a little more about Cottonwood Garden’s 30 year history.
Transcript
The thing to pay attention to about this garden is that it was built on what was a dump site.
I remember when I first saw the garden, there were a few gardeners just digging plots in this area. I mean, it was so new.
Oliver Kellhammer is the guiding light and the shining star of this garden. He took the initiative, he got it done, and he planted a lot of what we call the foundation plantings.
And originally, there was one tiny plot that was fenced in and hidden in the bush. And then this garden started happening all around and people are like, what’s this little plot? And it was a group of Chinese folks that had been secretly gardening there for years.
There was an Asian gardener called Austin, and he was one of the original gardeners and he had this whole area, this whole fenced garden was all his. Yeah, he was a great gardener. So now it’s divided into four plots.
Thirty years ago, community gardens were a new movement here, but largely Strathcona was the first big one and some people were sitting over in Strathcona looking at this bare strip of dirt that the city had laid along the edge of the street out to our main path and decided it would be a place that they could occupy. Right. So they did. And they started the guerrilla gardens over here.
I started, maybe the garden was three or four years old. After a couple of years, they got a permit from the City so they could start raising money. So they raised $25,000 with the original grant, I think. And that paid for the water system. The line runs down the central path
And the tool shed. Interesting. We put so many different layers on top of it, but it used to be Santa’s workshop. So the original gardeners got it from Oakridge, I think.
When vegetation first started coming back to what had been a bare and dusty expanse, we were suddenly overrun by a plague of rats. Then one spring, a pair of red-tailed hawks appeared and proceeded to build an enormous twiggy nest in one of the large cottonwood trees. For the rest of that summer, they hunted the rats relentlessly to feed their chicks. And it wasn’t long before the problem was completely under control.
When they were talking about the Malkin Extension. Right. One of the things we would go to the City and argue was that we have stuff in the garden that is in no other public space.
When we had to fight for it a few years ago when they were gonna draw a highway through it. It was amazing how many people had the same kind of gut reaction and, no. No. We have to keep this, there’s no question about it. Such a variety of plants here. I feel like everybody else who comes in here, all the visitors. They always say that it calms them down. The beauty of it is always changing. There’s always something new to see. The fragrances are amazing,
Jill Weiss. She started talking about an Accessible Garden, right. So we said, if you can do it, great. And she got the City on board. And she got $25,000 out of somebody. And got in touch with community groups who came in and helped build the boxes.
Terrible things happen. Vandalism. Tent city. And we just pick up and continue on with a kind of a Zen attitude. [laugh]
Audio recording, editing, mixing: Lorna Boschman
Audio Optimizer: John Burton
