Adopt-a-planter program?

Our community association is thinking about starting a program to encourage community residents to volunteer to plant and care for one or more city planters. I'm wondering if anyone has experience we might learn from, or can direct me to a website that describes a program now in existence.

Our city, like many, has suffered from deteriorating budgets for greenspace development and maintenance and, over the years, has cut down on things like planting flowers, shrubs and trees as well as maintaining what it has. Hundreds of large concrete planters are now stored in a city warehouse somewhere. These could be used. If we (the community) agree to plant and maintain them, the City will bring them out of storage and place them where we want.

Our committee has other plans as well, but this one sounds easy and practical, and a good way to get citizens participating in a community effort.

Any advice or direction would be greatly appreciated.

There is a nearby town that has businesses donate to purchase the plants and then they (with the help of Master Gardeners) plant and take care of the containers. There is a plaque in each container with the name of the company that donated.

Here in Berkeley, the city has been installing traffic circles on certain streets as traffic calming devices. They're large circles of curb enclosing dirt hills. The city gives the local neighborhood association a budget for buying plants. Usually, the neighbors nearest the circle take care of the plants. How well this works depends on how cohesive the neighborhood is. If the neighborhood has an active neighborhood association, the circles are well taken care of. If the neighborhood doesn't have an association, things can get a bit weedy. In our neighborhood, the circles have acted as a way to bring the community together more. Those who aren't into city politics but into gardening can participate.

These are both excellent ways of promoting community gardens, thanks. I also googled on "planter adopt" amd found a good number of other community-based programs.

We're starting this year on a few areas of the residential part of the downtown core here in Ottawa, mostly just our own committee members being involved. We're putting a story in the local community paper to raise awareness, and I think as we do the work and as the gardens and planters grow, we'll attract attention and participation. We're taking before pictures now, and plan a spread in the fall issue. Maybe the local mainstream newspapers will pick it up too.

Our local city councillor is totally behind us. We hope that by demonstrating what we can do the City will give us access to some funds. Right now we're spending a modest $1000 from our association's donations fund. We hope it will prove to be a good investment for the future. We'd like to see a community-based program develop out of this with the City and businesses getting involved.

Sounds like a wonderful program andy. Good luck!

Check out the America is Beautiful organization. They have good ideas for such projects by mostly small and medium sized communities. Has anyone worked with them?

It's summertime! Let's get the community gardening forum going again. This is a great place to share stories, ideas, problems and solutions, etc. Its my first year working with a Food Bank Community Garden, here in Winston-Salem, NC. We plant and harvest produce for Second Harvest which distributes the produce to soup kitchens, food pantires, etc. in 18 counties in western NC. We've harvested over 1000 lbs. of squash, cucumbers and now beginning to harvest tomatoes. It's a great program completely managed by volunteers. We have a blog if you are interested at foodbankgarden.blogspot.com

I would love to hear what's happening at your community garden.

Oh, the American Community Gardening Assn. is having its annual conference in Columbus, Ohio in early August. Website is www.communitygardening.org

Best, Ellen

A new Community Garden was started in the Glenbrook community of Calgary.
The church donated an empty lot and obtained donations of lumber to build growing boxes. Volunteers built the boxes. These were filled with good soil.
Participants pay $15 for the summer to help the church defray the cost of supplying the water. The boxes are about 4 feet by 10 feet. About 16 to 24 inches deep. The deeper ones are for handicapped gardeners.
This project not only benefits the participating gardeners, but also the community as a whole. It helps us to meet our neighbours. It also improves the health of residents---many of whom are seniors. They get exercise by walking over to see what is growing.
It is fun to go to the community garden and see what people are growing and how the gardens are doing.