Volunteers help transform Clary Gardens for fall
Clary Gardens held Mumapalooza, an event designed to get the gardens ready for a colorful autumn season.
“We pull the annuals and replace them with fall flowers,” Dawn Adams said. “Mumapalooza is ear catching and if you read the word, it is eye catching too. There are over 100 mums here and over 100 pots or more. Today we are just filling the pots.”
Adams and her sister Donna Harmon like to help at the gardens. “We were here yesterday cleaning up the rose gardens. The mums will start to bloom and they will look nice until late October. They will be spread out, some in the rose gardens, probably around the pavilion and out in the children’s garden. There will be pots periodically throughout the gardens to add fall colors and we have pumpkins and gourds to put out. There will be a big gourd display by the restrooms and at each of the houses. Also, fall decorations, corn shocks and it will be pretty once everything is in place. The trees will be changing, so it will be a colorful place.” Adams teaches yoga in the summer months but likes to help at the garden. “We like to help out when they are in a pinch and needing people to come out and help.” Harmon said.
Kacie Powers like’s to bring her daughters, Skarlet and Mia to these events because they think it is fun to work in the garden. The girls were busy filling the flower pots with potting soil and Mia chose a black pot shaped like a cauldron in the spirit of Halloween. They were excited to pick out a pumpkin before leaving, as well.
“This is the first time we’ve had an event like this,” said Executive Director of Clary Gardens Jandi Adams. “We do volunteer events usually once per quarter and we also try to do a community event. The purpose of these events is for people that might not know the gardens are here. Also, because it is a volunteer event and it is really a hand’s in the dirt event. We get excited about those events here because there are so many benefits to doing that and people are always calling and asking, ‘ How can we volunteer or how can we help?’ Specifically by coming to the gardens to do some planting or trimming, having that social atmosphere to learn something, as well as provide some education for them to learn about the gardens. Of course we need the help too. We have 20 acres here and a good majority of that is the woodland trail which is definitely a favorite of the community. We have all of these areas dedicated to horticulture and right now our seasonal planting. Our whole goal this week is to transform the gardens into fall and it takes alot. We’ve got corn stalks, mums of course, pumpkins, and the scarecrows are coming.”
All of the information is at scarecrowtown.com and people can register from all over the county. Jandi said, “They can put scarecrows up in front of their businesses or their homes. It is a fundraiser for Clary Gardens and a great way to get the community out here to walk along the scarecrow walking trail in addition to seeing them throughout Coshocton. We have got a lot of our friends and partners putting scare crows up. The fall transformation that we are doing today is transplanting mums. We have all these empty containers and cauldrons and we always try to choose mum colors that really pop. We have lots of orange already, lots of pumpkins and a lot of these things are donated. We have so many partners that are willing to help. Yesterday our team worked to get all of these containers up here, about 100 containers that we are decorating. We are getting ready to put soil into all of these pots. So familys and kids can come out and do it with us, it is a fun activity. They can come out and they get to see the one they helped plant. The ones that do come and help get to take a pumpkin home. We have a lot going on out here. We are generally open every day from sunup to sundown.”
Jandi started this event with two other staff members, Jody Shrimplin and Jess Miskimins. “They do a lot of the behind the scenes stuff. They work day to day here in the gardens and they know people enjoy this stuff. Jody is the gardener and Jess is her helper. They water the flowers and keep the gardens cleaned up. We’ve got benches throughout the garden, it is open to the public and it doesn’t cost anything,” Jandi said.
Category: Multimedia, Photo Galleries
