On June 4, the space next to Acton Memorial Library that faces Town Hall was transformed from a tarp-covered visual blight to a wood-chipped desert, and finally to a fully-fledged garden.
Before planting day, interested parties, including Garden Club members Barbara Wissell and Cathy Fochtman, Teen Librarian Chris Bushie, Acton Community Conservation Specialist Ian Bergemann, and Acton Memorial Library Trustee Ann Chang, met to talk about the goals and priorities for the new garden. Ms. Wissell and Ms. Fochtman then created a detailed plot plan that contains an assortment of native perennials. On planting day, a group of volunteers guided by Chris Bushie, Ian Bergemann, and Barbara Wissell, spent a hot morning adding plants in the carefully mapped out plan.
Ian Bergemann notes that this garden, “along with the successful native plantings done at the Red House’s Climate Resilient Pocket Park will enable a large area of the town hall campus to be dedicated to native wildlife. In addition, this garden and the gardens at the Red House are ideal places for folks to visit and learn what kinds of native species do well in different microenvironments, so they may do the same at home.”
The new garden was funded by a $400 grant from the Acton Garden Club as well as $1000 from the Acton Memorial Library Planter Trust Fund. Garden Club members and library staff will keep the plants watered throughout the summer while they are still getting established.
All of the plants are native perennials, which provides a teaching opportunity about native plants for gardeners, children, and others. The Acton Garden Club is coordinating botanical signs for the different plants to increase the educational value. Children’s librarian Robert Carter is beginning to plan programming around the garden, including an event for kids to make simple rain gauges for the new garden.
The Wilde Garden is named after William Allan Wilde, who provided funds to build the library in 1890 with two purposes in mind. He dedicated it to the memory of “Acton’s patriotic citizens” who fought in the Civil War to make “a united country once more possible.” In addition, he wanted “to give to every man, woman, and child in Acton a library of good, pure, interesting and instructive reading, — so [as] to mold the minds of all.”
Miriam Lezak is an associate editor for the Acton Exchange and an Acton Memorial Library Trustee. Although she came out to help with planting day, she is not a gardener.