Garden of Hope Transforms Lawn into Community Harvest

Along a sidewalk on School Street, tomatoes, peppers and squash ripen, culinary herbs grow, and an orange butterfly circles the milkweed. A table and chairs under a tree offers a place to sit and talk or take a break from weeding. A sign in the garden says, “This is a community garden. It is here for you and everyone. Feel free to pick something.”
Three years ago, Pat Conaway dug up a strip of grass outside the Common Street Spiritual Center and planted the Garden of Hope. “The broad concept,” he says, “is to engage the community, and to build something inviting that tastes good and looks good, something that everyone can enjoy.”
On the north side of the garden are perennial wildflowers like nasturtiums. This is a slightly shadier area where milkweed and perennial herbs such as lemon thyme, basil and oregano are thriving. Butternut squash are ripening and a watermelon slowly swells. On the south side the sun heats up the greenery, and the heat is retained by the adjacent brick wall, creating an ideal climate for tomatoes and peppers. A tall broccoli stem is protected from rabbits by a recycled wire frame that used to be a “Buddy Bin,” a receptacle for bottles and cans. Conaway also planted marigolds at the edge to deter critters, but otherwise the periphery is open. “I wouldn’t feel right about putting a big wire fence around it. That would be the wrong message.”
In every uniform strip of grass, Conaway sees the potential for an interactive garden. “They could be so much more imaginative. They could be pollinator and butterfly friendly with edibles.” Informality and engagement are key concepts in learning how to incorporate nature into our lives, he says. “People should have an idea where their food comes from and take part in planting it, nurturing it, eating it, tasting it, and enjoying it.”
Conaway collects branches and built a boundary for the Garden out of sticks. “If I find an interesting gnarly one, I’ll stick it in the ground as a natural sculpture.”
Litter outside the School Street entrance to the Spiritual Center has significantly reduced, thanks to the trash receptacle, bottle and can bin, and cigarette butt disposal outside the door. Conaway also considers it an effect of the garden. “My theory is that when someone’s taking care of the space, it communicates a positive message.”
To help with weeding and watering, Conaway has recruited people who walk down the sidewalk and comment on the garden. Much of the help comes Conaway’s sister Sally Hopkins and brother Tim Conaway, and from members of Common Street Spiritual Center.
Inspired by Toby Hemenway Gaia’s Garden, a book about homescale permaculture, Conaway seeks to align the garden with the existing habitat, climate, and natural water supply, moving away from model of heavy irrigation. The garden also has the potential for incorporating other aspects of permaculture such as soil building, composting, and cover crops, rendering this a year round project.
Conaway has proposed this type of garden to several other institutions as a replacement for grassy strips, which he refers to as the “mow and blow.” The First Congregational Church responded enthusiastically and planted a garden on the Main Street side of their building in Natick Center. Other groups have shown appreciation for the idea but reticence to actually implement it because of the attention it requires.
Conaway finds the attention restorative. “There is a certain patience it requires. I just like doing that stuff. It’s fun for me. It would be fun for a lot of people. Things are tilted a little too heavily into technology. We need to tilt them back into nature.”