The Future of Vera’s Garden
I didn’t realize there was a new apartment building planned for the east side of Lyndale at 28th. Or maybe I was confusing it with the apartment building (or condos?) and retail project that I think are going in on the west side of Lyndale.
Anyway, it’s nice to hear that the developers intend to keep Vera’s Garden intact.
The founders of Vera’s Garden, a verdant landmark along the Midtown Greenway bicycle trail, always knew it was growing on borrowed land. But the flowers will continue to bloom, despite a new six-story apartment complex that will take over a third of the land. Developer Scott Mann hopes to incorporate what’s left of the garden into the south-facing plaza of the building at 2833 Lyndale Ave. S. He’s even recruited the help of the garden’s founder, Donovan Harmel, who said he’s expected to lose that top 20 feet of the garden to development like this since it started six years ago.
“One of the first things we looked at before designing was the garden,” Mann said. He wants to put two stairways to fuse street-level development with the greenway through the garden, Mann said, something that doesn’t exist in many places along the 5.6 mile route.Vera’s Garden is one of many community gardens that have sprung up on the north slope of the greenway through the cooperation of neighbors, the rail authority and businesses.
Each year, native and exotic plants in the garden wow the cyclists, runners, roller bladers and others. Harmel said its location on the sunny side of the old rail trench, which also provides protection from bad weather, stretches the growing season by three weeks.
Vera’s Garden is a landmark on the Greenway. I’d hate to see it disappear completely to an apartment building and underground parking. Better to preserve part of it than none of it.
I can think of at least two other community garden spots. One just a few blocks east and then another one down next to Wells Fargo/Kix Field. Are there any others?
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Oh I LOVVVVVVVVE Vera’s garden!!!
I hope they can move all of the upper plants down, and recycle those wonderful rock retaining walls.
I don’t know of other gardens besides the Soo Line and Kix ones that you mentioned, by the way, unless you count that eco-yard thing down by Hiawatha, which isn’t in the trench, and I’m not really sure if it’s a “community garden” per se.