Currently, the Charlevoix Area Garden Club cares for nine gardens in Charlevoix.
Eight of the gardens are at civic or public locations: Depot Heritage Garden, Père Charlevoix Garden, Charlevoix Historical Society Garden at Harsha House, Memorial Garden, Post Office Garden, Meditation Garden at Charlevoix Hospital, Triangle Garden, Library Garden. The ninth garden, added in 2024, is the Community Vegetable Garden.
The Gardens can be located using this online map: CLICK HERE
About half of the gardens that we currently maintain were founded in the 1970’s: Library (original location), Père Charlevoix, Memorial, Post Office, and Triangle. In the last 25 years we added the Depot, Harsha House, new Library, and the Charlevoix Hospital Garden.
The Garden Club newsletter from October 1999 features and article about the new garden at the hospital with a photo of members Kathy Johnson, Rhea Dow, and Chris Unbehaun.
The Club, sadly, had to discontinue care for a number of gardens as our resources were stretched. These included: The Middle School Butterfly Garden, Head Start Garden, Bergmann Center Therapy Garden, Charlevoix Pool, and the Charlevoix Area Foundation. The Bergmann Center’s garden took the first place prize for therapy gardens – awarded by the National Federation of Garden Clubs.
A recent survey of the chairpersons of each garden yielded the following results:
Good news:
most gardens are doing well
members are committed to the gardens they tend
nearly all members who signed up last year worked at least one garden
more members have signed up to work in 2025 than in the previous year
garden chairperson leadership remains consistent
Concerns:
overall shortage of volunteers
need help at the Père Charlevoix Garden and Hospital Garden
the Depot Garden, Père Charlevoix Garden, and Hospital Gardens are difficult and/or too much work
definition of cost responsibilities between the CAGC and the entities with ownership of the gardens – particularly for large budget items such as tree maintenance and removal, grading, boulders, large shrub removal, large scale weeding/mulching/soil amendments
inadequate irrigation at Harsha House and Père Charlevoix Garden
Actions:
we have created the position of “Garden Coordinator”
added more volunteers for 2025
rotate new members between several gardens
compile bids from several companies for large budget items and selectively use professional help to ease the work load on members
work with the City and other owners of the garden properties to repair or replace irrigation using a matching gift model
Recommendations:
New members should rotate through several gardens ASAP
To cultivate friendships, chairs send weekly communication to garden team and avoid single worker gardening when feasible
Use one-day volunteers for heavy workload times with advance notice
Add soil amendments like compost when adding new plants and for yearly topping
Use club Master Gardeners knowledge and resources at MSU Extension for plant diagnostics and soil samples
Add Civic Garden Coordinator as non-voting ad hoc Board
“Your garden is yours. And your standards should be the ones you establish. And these standards should be actually achievable. Achievable based on the resources you have and can spare for your own piece of ground—little things like blood, sweat and tears; brainpower; manpower; time; money”
Scott Buererlein, Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden
To see a PDF of the full presentation "CAGC Civic Gardens - 50 Years of Growing" given by our Garden Coordinator, Dawne Jordan, at our October 2024 Membership Meeting
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