Monday, October 05, 2015
City of London
Gnorbert's Garden at Storybook
Today, the City of London’s Growing Naturally program completed the final phase of a ‘Learning and Demonstration Garden’ in Storybook Gardens. The garden, developed as an educational opportunity for children and adults alike to learn about sustainable gardening ideas and share knowledge, is now complete with a rain garden.
Fanshawe College Landscape Design Program students designed the garden, which includes an attractive, low-water and sustainable landscape suitable to our region. ‘Gnorbert’s Garden’ includes a sun, shade and pollinator garden as well as raised planters for vegetables, a naturalized area and examples of low impact development. Students from Saunders Secondary School grew many of the plants and volunteered their time to plant them earlier this spring.
“This was a great hands-on learning experience for our students,” said Sara Bellaire, Landscape Design Professor at Fanshawe College. “The opportunity to see this project through from design to implementation over the past two years in the program has been a rare and rewarding skill building experience.”
Visitors can enjoy each garden’s unique beauty; see firsthand the types of plants that grow well in our area; learn recommended planting practices and overall garden care.
“Park visitors have been very receptive to the garden,” said John Riddell, Manager of Storybook Gardens. “New programming was developed to incorporate sustainable gardening information in daily park activities, summer day camps and educational programming targeted to schools. We realized, for many of the children, this was their first opportunity to pull a weed or vegetable out of the dirt. It’s exciting to watch them explore and learn.”
The Growing Naturally program provides residents of London with useful advice to help them save time and money and ultimately reduce their overall impact on the environment.
“We saw an opportunity for Growing Naturally to expand and inform children and families about the importance of conserving water, growing native plants, encouraging pollinators and growing vegetables in urban areas,” said Tara Clayton, Water Demand Manager, City of London.
Media contacts:
Diana Rowe
Supervisor, Storybook Gardens
519 661-2500 ext 0919
drowe@london.ca
Paula Bustard
Water Demand Technologist
City of London
519 661-2500 ext 7028
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