Location: 3539 Lobsinger Line St. Clements On N0B 2M0
I am delighted to share Jenniffer’s inspiring story as it shows a true passion for improving her community. She joined the Underhill Seedsitters all the way from St. Clements, about 120 kms from Toronto. After an initial email and phone call, I mailed seeds to her and finally got a chance to meet her at our second seedsitter gathering.
She actually made a 2-hour drive to our gathering and had so much fun meeting the other seedsitters and potting up plants. Right from the start, she knew she wanted to make a difference in her community and when the St Clements post master requested help with their run down gardens, she stepped up.
She spent two weeks to put in the garden and the transformation was incredible.
She started with weeding and then designed a passive watering system that included large reservoirs where the downspout drains and another one at the tap. She then joined them with a trenching system to connect all of the garden beds. She wanted to give the staff the flexibility of using tap water in times where there wasn’t enough rain for the garden. The trenches would distribute the water whether it came from rain or the tap.
Once the trenching system and reservoir was completed she filled the trenches with a deep layer of mulch and topped the beds with mulch as well. She planted several native pollinators from our group next to the existing perennial plants she discovered while weeding.
And now she’s impatiently waiting on her least favorite part of the process: waiting for the native plants to mature! Jenniffer has promised to keep us posted on how the garden matures.
At our gathering, I mentioned taking a day trip to visit Jenniffer and planting even more native plants in this beautiful garden and our group was very enthusiastic. I can see that there are lots of spots to add even more plants grown by our group, so let’s start making plans for visiting St. Clements in late September.
