Baha'i Youth Plant Seeds For The Guelph Enabling Garden

Diane and Jonas plant various seeds in pots with the intention of  bringing them back to the Enabling Garden to plant. 

This happy looking Zinnia sprouted at the Davids Mandar household.

The thyme plants really do look like they are waving joyfully!

A marigold that was lovingly cared for at home and will be planted at the garden for community members to enjoy :)

Sprouts coming up nicely thanks to Diane's love and care.

Great job, everybody! Can't wait to see these blooming in the garden!

The Story Behind The Garden's Rain Barrels

The Guelph Enabling Garden is home to some amazing functional art. Have you ever seen such pretty rain barrels?

The inspiration for these special rain barrels came about when our original black rain barrels were stolen from the garden in 2008. Upon hearing this news, Judith Rosenberg, founder of Spark of Brilliance (a non-profit organization promoting Art Therapy) looked for the "silver lining" in the situation and saw an opportunity.

Judith's idea was to decorate new rain barrels that were kindly donated to the project through her initiation.  Spark of Brilliance then found the perfect partners to help manifest the vision: Grade 12 Liberal Arts students at St. James' High School. The beautiful rain barrels were created under the direction of their teacher, local artist, Anne Schnurr.

Thanks to Spark of Brilliance, St. James' High School 2008 Liberal Arts students, and the Enabling Garden's board and handy volunteers, the Garden was able to replace its accessible rain barrels!

The look of these new rain barrels definitely fit in better with the ambiance of our charming garden. Children who visit the garden love to feel the textures of the beads and other decorative pieces on the barrels.

The barrels were installed on raised platforms with ample room alongside of them so that those using wheelchairs and walkers can access the collected rain water. The rain barrels are also physically attached to the platforms to prevent any future theft.

Want to try decorating rain barrels yourself? Here is an article that shows you how: "HT Activity Plan: Decorating Rain Barrels"

Someone wants to say 'hi'!

Iris danfordiae

Sweet spring flowers are currently popping up in the Guelph Enabling Garden. Come by and say 'hi'! The dwarf iris shown above is a bright canary yellow with brown speckles. It is one of the earliest fragrant spring flowers that bloom in the garden.

Spring is Here!

The winter felt long, but necessarily so. Winter is a time for rest so that we can have the strength and energy to carry on with spring activities!

In the spring, things start to bud and come up from the earth. We start to think about seeds! Take the time to also plant seeds of intention for your garden this year.

Wanted to share a neat project that occurred at Guelph's recent community Seedy Saturday event. It featured a community art project called 'Seeds of Hope' that encouraged people to write an intention or message to Mother Nature on homemade wildflower seed paper. These Seeds of Hope will be planted in gardens throughout the community so that they can manifest!

 
I'm looking forward to the upcoming gardening season! Check out the upcoming events in the GEG!

Gardening Fun Continues!

Hello, welcome! As you can see, it's been a while since I've updated this blog. This is because The Guelph Enabling Garden programming stops in the late fall and throughout the winter, so I've had nothing to report during the past few months.

But just because the programming stops in the Enabling Garden during the colder months, this does not mean that the gardening fun stops! To see what cool activities you can do with plants during fall and winter, check out my other website (that I run with fellow Horticultural Therapist, Trina Alix). In this site, www.gardentherapynotes.com we share our Horticultural Therapy notes so that you and those you care about can take advantage of all the wonderful benefits of gardening.

Don't worry, I will continue to update this blog when the Enabling Garden programming starts up again in the spring of 2013. In the meantime, I hope you check out www.gardentherapynotes.com

Happy Gardening!

Lea

Wildflowers

Glenna enjoys the flowers currently in bloom in the garden. 

New England Aster is starting to bloom a pretty purple. This aster attracts many pollinators in the garden late in the season. 

The Guelph Enabling Garden

Here is a virtual tour of the Guelph Enabling Garden in August!

Guelph Community Living's bed has petunias spilling out of their raised bed :)

Riverside Glen's bed is packed with zinnias, marigolds, salvia, tomatoes and herbs

Riverside Residences had some volunteer amaranth join their bed

The Companion Planting Garden made good use of their small bed

Here is a cucumber from the above bed

Lots of pretty flowers in the KidzGrow garden like morning glories, cosmos and calendula

The KidzGrow garden also produced veggies such as the pepper above

This beautiful Hibiscus moscheutos 'Southern Belle' takes my breath away!