Rossland’s community garden wants to move to higher ground.
Eight years after being created at the corner of Jubilee Street and 7th Avenue, plans are afoot to move the popular gardens to the east side of the Jubilee Park.
The problem? Usually something that’s a gardener’s best friend — water.
“We’ve always had challenges with water there, especially in the spring,” says Rachael Roussin. “When we first built it, that water was seen as an advantage, and it has been. Often you don’t have to water these beds until August.”
But since then, the garden has begun to “succumb to the wetlands”, the garden’s supporter told council in a presentation last week.
“Over the past two years members of the Community Garden have struggled with the water issue and now realize that rather than fight nature, the garden should be relocated to higher ground. “
Roussin says they’ve also realized a garden wasn’t the best use of the land.
“We really began to notice, there s a frog population here, there’s a bird population here,” she says. “This site used to be a wetland or a bog or something, cause the hydrology here is just different from most places in Rossland.”
Now Roussin, who’s the chair of the Rossland Society for Environmental Action, is helping the volunteers who manage the garden make plans to move it to a dryer location — though not far away. She says a few dozen metres from the current garden is a space where they wouldn’t have a river running through it every spring.
“On the east side is an area where there used to be a basketball park, and at some point a lot of fill was put onto the site,” she says. “It’s a site that’s very high, dry, and flat. So the idea is to move it to the site of the old basketball court, and it will be high and dry at all times of the year.”
She says the garden would also see some changes.
“Currently the garden is significant in size — 16 beds and public space,” she says. “So the idea is to reduce the footprint of the garden, and make it a more efficient and easy-to-maintain space.
“Possibly we’ll be reducing the number of beds, maybe by a third, maybe reduce the public areas. It will be a smaller, dryer, tighter, easier to maintain space.”
But right now it’s all talk. Roussin appeared before city council last week to discuss the plan, and ask approval from council for the garden group to seek funding to start designing a new garden, expand the existing wetland area and plan the logistics of the move.
Council gave its approval for the group to seek the funding, but wants to see the plan before work would begin. The group also asked council for material support — moving waterlines, buying materials with the city’s contractor number, and use of a bobcat.
Work would not likely begin until next year. But Roussin has no doubts there will be a community garden in Rossland in the future.
“Community gardens across the Kootenays are always a unique endeavour,” she says. “There’s so much passion, learning, they’re a great asset. However, community gardens also take a lot of manpower to maintain. Rossland is lucky that we have great volunteers who have taken lead to manage garden. They’re doing a great job.”