Community gardeners in the Stockyard, Clark-Fulton and Brooklyn Centre neighborhoods now have a new source for their plants and gardening materials. With help from the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, a new garden-recycling program allows volunteers to salvage flower beds, landscaping stones, pots and other plantings and materials from properties where homes are being demolished.
Rescuing and reusing these items not only will save the gardeners valuable dollars, it also “adds so much character and history to the gardens,” says Diane Morgan, garden leader of NxGen Preserve, whose volunteers salvaged plants and pavers from a property on West 56th Street in April. Those materials have been recycled in gardens on West 57th Street and the NxGen Preserve 63 on West 63rd.
Cleveland’s community gardens network is working with the Land Bank on the possibility of expanding the program citywide.