Dunwoody Woman’s Club Aids Brook Run Project

The beautification project in the greenhouse and barn area at Brook Run Park has taken another big step forward thanks to the Dunwoody Woman’s Club.

Last week the club donated plants and compost for a new shade garden located beside the barn.

They also made a $50 donation to the Community Garden, which is overseeing the project, to purchase additional plant for the shade garden.

The donated plants include hostas, hellebores, an Autumn fern, Japanese roof iris, beech fern, pachysandra, hydrangeas, lily of the valley, bee balm and columbine. The donations are a project of the Woman’s Club’s Conservation Program.

Five members of the club – Kathy Hanna, Toine Ashley, Pat Adams, Laura Colden and Gerri Penn – visited the greenhouse-barn area on Thursday to see the new shade garden.

During their visit, the Community Garden volunteer greenhouse-barn manager Diana Wood explained the various aspects of the beautification project.

One of those, she pointed out, is a recently installed sun garden. She also told the Woman’s Club members the plans call for two wheelchair-access areas – raised planting beds beside the sun garden and a path along the wall of the main greenhouse where those in wheelchairs can reach in-ground beds.

Diana also gave the Woman’s Club members a tour of the greenhouse, which is where volunteers raise some of their organic produce for charity in cold-weather months.

“I’m so excited you guys have done this,” Diana said in thanking the Woman’s Club for their generous shade garden donations. “We’ll probably add to the shade garden as we go along.”

After the greenhouse tour, Community Garden member and Master Gardener Karen Converse gave the Woman’s Club members a tour of the Community Garden.

While the Woman’s Club visitors were touring the vegetable plots, Community Garden Greenhouse Team volunteers installed the donated plants and cleared underbrush along a fence bordering the shade garden. Pitching in were Angela Minyard, Sue Said, Maria Barton and Ann DoVanGuy.

The shade garden is next to a sheltered area of the barn where bales of pine and wheat straw are currently being stored. The barn is being converted to a classroom, and the sheltered area will be turned into a porch. The porch will give members of the community taking classes or visiting the garden a place to relax, which is the objective of the shade garden.

Diana said she was asked to compile a wish list of shade plants she would like to add to last week’s donations. Here it is:

• Shrubs - azalea, camellia, rhododendron, pieris
• Lenten rose
• Climbing vine - hydrangea or smilax
• Trillium
• Wind flowers
• Ferns
• Ground covers

If you have any of these plants that you would like to donate, please contact Diana at: dianawood480@mac.com.

Diana said that a lot of the volunteers who have helped in the greenhouse-barn project are members of the Dunwoody community but not necessarily members of the Community Garden.

“It’s for everybody,” she told the Woman’s Club members about the new garden areas. “Please come back.”

Food Day

A county health specialist and representatives from a trio of community gardens were among approximately three dozen people who visited the Food Day 2011 open house at the Community Garden in Brook Run Park last Monday.

The county representative was Dana Timar. She is a program specialist in the Office of Chronic Disease Prevention, Health Assessment and Promotion in DeKalb County’s Board of Health.

The community gardens that were represented included two in DeKalb County, the Clarkston Community Garden and the Henderson Park Community Garden in Tucker, and one in Suwanee, the Harvest Farm Community Garden.

Community Garden volunteers greeted the visitors on a perfect fall afternoon with a spruced up garden, tents, tables and decorations that included a gardening scarecrow, pumpkins and mums.

Volunteers who set up, hosted the visitors and then took down all the tents and decorations included: Don and Karen Converse, David and Muriel Knope, Diana Wood, Sally Malone, Meg Firebaugh, Ann DoVanGuy, Carl and Tracy Gilchrist, Lalitha Jammalamadaka, Sue Said and Pattie Baker.

Theresa Meschede helped plan the event.

The garden has about half a dozen plots available. Anyone interested in joining the garden should contact the garden by email at: membership@dunwoodygarden.org