The Plant City Commons Community Garden celebrated its first year in the teaching gardens at Hillsborough Community College. In year two, the club hopes to get more community support.
When the University of Florida stepped away from its teaching garden at the Hillsborough Community College campus in Plant City, something new was about to take root.
The Plant City Commons Community Garden started in 2012, but members wanted a permanent home. After leasing a space for three years at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, the garden signed a three-year lease to take on the the space at the college.
That was last year. At the start of 2017, garden members and volunteers celebrated their first full year at their new home on Cherry Street. The events hosted in 2016 were successful, including Second Saturday volunteer days and the recent Christmas Garden Stroll.
To date, garden spaces include multiple arboretums, two greenhouses, a teaching pavilion and storage space.
“It’s a community asset now,” Karen Elizabeth, founder, said. “It’s open sunrise to sunset every day. We held 23 events in our first year, and we want to be available to businesses and civic groups.”
The organization hopes to continue to expand. The garden’s proposed projects for 2017 include enhanced entryways, table gardens and areas for compost bins — but they need community support from both businesses and volunteers.
“We’ve developed an adoption process,” Elizabeth said. “It’s more beneficial to the community as a whole this way. Everything that we’ve done has to do with volunteerism.”
The club has spaces available for adoption in the teaching garden. To participate, businesses and other sponsors are required to volunteer one maintenance day every month, and participate in two holiday or themed events per year.
While there’s no fee to adopt a space at the garden, the addition of plants, soil amendments, mulch and various chemicals must be pre-approved by the Plant City Commons Community Garden before use.
The club hopes that the adoption process will be a new way to unite the community. Existing supporters include Lowe’s, the Suncoast Native Plant Society and individual families.
As businesses and sponsors continue to adopt spaces, club members and volunteers are focused on bringing the garden back to its former glory and involving members from all parts of the community — including all ages, backgrounds and ability levels.
“We’re passionate about what this brings to the community,” Elizabeth said. “We’ve just started a table garden project for members in wheelchairs, and we’re expanding our walkways into the existing pavement. A lot can get done, but we need donations and muscle.”
Contact Emily Topper at etopper@plantcityobserver.com.
