St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)

May 15, 2004

COMMON GROUND
DOZENS OF PRETTY CITY GARDENS, APPRECIATED BY SCORES OF FLOWER LOVERS, ARE TENDED BY A HANDFUL OF VOLUNTEERS.

By MARGE HOLS, Columnist

Every spring for more than 30 years, giant red cannas appeared as if by magic on the boulevard at Summit and Lexington avenues. Then, four years ago, nothing; the garden lay fallow.

Not until then did I learn volunteers cared for that garden -- and most of the city's other gardens as well. When they moved on to other interests, the gardens were in jeopardy.

While I observed, John Mercer acted.

"I called the city when I heard they weren't going to redo the garden at Lexington and Summit and told the fellow I was talking to that it was a really bad decision to grass it over," Mercer recalls. "My wife, Leslie, and I offered to weed and water the garden if the city would plant it."

By the following summer in 2001, Mercer had persuaded friends on that block of Summit Avenue, David and Sue Klevan, to take over planting and caring for the garden. The Klevans, in turn, recruited their neighbors.

"That's been a real phenomenon, what it did for that block," says Mercer, a former Minnesota deputy commissioner of education whose consulting business focuses on performance coaching. "You hear the people talk about it in terms of a sense of community. They met people they didn't know."

Mercer, an avid gardener and former president of the Ramsey County Garden Club, didn't stop at the Summit Avenue garden. He persuaded the city to provide annuals and perennials for five parks in his Ramsey Hill neighborhood -- Nathan Hale, Cochran, Boyd, McQuillan and the Martin Luther King Community Center. The next year, he added two more parks: the Holly Avenue Tot Lot and Boy Scout Triangle.

Each spring, he orders plants for those gardens, the Summit Avenue garden and gardens maintained by the Ramsey County Garden Club.

"John literally goes with the city parks folks in the truck as they deliver about 50 to 60 flats of annuals for us to plant as well as some perennials each year," says Leslie Mercer. As chair of the Ramsey Hill Association parks and garden committee, Leslie coordinates work of about 15 volunteers.

When planting in parks, John Mercer recommends massing flowers to create focal points and make maintenance easier. Keeping plants watered is a major challenge, he says. Four of the Ramsey Hill parks don't have a hose hookup, so he helps coax neighbors to run their hoses into the gardens. He finds it frustrating that some people trample flowers or even dig them up.

"Parks and gardens make an incredible difference in the whole ambiance of the neighborhood," John Mercer says. "A lot of people around here live in condos and apartments and don't have space. Parks give people green space and kids a place to play. They make the neighborhood a better place for everybody and give folks a sense of pride in where they live."

Next Friday, Mayor Randy Kelly plans to proclaim May 24 John Mercer Day in St. Paul. The proclamation will recognize Mercer as "a catalyst for the beautification of the city of St. Paul through his tireless work as a volunteer gardener."

An urban greening advocate, the mayor kicked off a Blooming St. Paul program in 2002 to beautify and soften the downtown environment with trees and flowers with help from city businesses. Both Blooming St. Paul and the gardening partners program are part of the city Parks and Recreation Department's horticulture program.

"This is an extremely avid gardening community," says Mark Granlund, arts and gardening coordinator for the parks department. "We have 50 to 60 flower gardens and 20 vegetable gardens maintained by community groups and other volunteers.

"This arrangement has been going on informally for a long time. Ed Hollanitsch (a city gardener) has worked with groups. He is retiring this summer. Now, I'm trying to add structure by tracking all the gardens and listing them on the city's Web site."

Granlund has urged city recreation centers to offer classes on gardening and started a newsletter. He's asking volunteers to inventory perennials in city gardens. To provide a ready stock of plants, he has set up a nursery in Como Park to hold perennials divided in the fall and to grow new plants.

"Some gardens have very strong neighborhood groups supporting them," Granlund says.

Horton Park Community Gardeners is creating native wildflower gardens in Horton Park. The St. Paul Garden Club plants flowers in Rice Park and also obtained a grant to landscape three blocks on Kellogg Boulevard last summer.

The District 2 Council supports a Hmong Community Garden that is moving to Prosperity Park this year. The Irvine Park Block Club maintains a perennial garden. Friends of Mattocks Park have established flower and native grass gardens.

The District 10 Council tends gardens at Como Park Pavilion and Midway Parkway. Friends of Swede Hollow are planting a huge garden at the Hamm Mansion site.

"To justify our existence, club members felt they needed to contribute to the community," says Phyllis Dosch of the Cherokee Heights Garden Club. The club has tended the High Bridge South garden at Smith and Cherokee avenues since 1987. "We felt this was a worthwhile project. It's the entry to our part of the city, and we like it to look beautiful."

Although the group started out planting mostly annuals, the volunteers have switched to perennials because they require less care, says garden committee co-chair Liz Mulcahy. Volunteers plant and weed the garden and supplement a weekly watering by the city.

"It's fun to do," Mulcahy says. "Every time we're there working, people walk by and we always get a thank you."

Interested in volunteering?

To get involved with an existing garden, check out locations on the city of St. Paul's Web site at www.ci.stpaul.mn.us/depts/parks/environment/comgardens.htm or call Mark Granlund, arts and gardening coordinator for the parks department, at 651-558-2317. "If they give me a call, I can help them find a garden," he says.

To report abandoned gardens, call Granlund, who is trying to document those gardens and arrange for volunteers to care for them. "If there are any unkempt gardens out there on park property," he says, "I'd be glad to hear about them."