The Children’s Garden, at the corner of Main and Clegg in Old Ottawa East, is Ottawa’s first dedicated children’s garden. Its big purpose is to serve as a space to engage and educate the senses, the mind and the imagination in terms of our relationships with nature. Its even bigger purpose is to have fun in the process.

In May of 2008, Robert Legget Park was a virtually unused patch of grass with a few trees. Today it is alive with organic food-growing beds, a woodland garden, a bursting-with-colour fence painted by Lady Evelyn kids, a beautiful stone pathway, a seating circle for story-time and activities, a composter, and a variety of shrubs and trees. It has hosted play-groups, art-making workshops, organic gardening workshops, harvest feasts and more. It is a “giving garden,” an idea promoted by the late local farmer and bee-keeper Terry McEvoy. So anyone is welcome to help out in the garden, and to harvest from the garden.

Of course, the target audience is kids, but we need adults (with or without kids) to keep things happening and to stay ahead of the weeds. If you have even just an hour here and there throughout the season to help out, we’d love to hear from you. Or just drop by and check it out. Have a picnic. Eat a cucumber. Pull some weeds.

For listings of Garden events, activities and workshops, please visit our online calendar and the “News and Events” page. If you have an activity or program you’d like to run in the garden, we’d also like to hear from you. Please contact us at

Getting There

Since the Children’s Garden is at the corner of Main and Clegg, it is easily reachable on bike, on foot or with OC Transpo. Buses 5 and 16 both stop at the corner of Main and Clegg. Plan your visit with the bus by using OC Transpo’s Travel Planner.

How the Garden Came to Be

Once SLOE identified this opportunity, amazing energy and fruitful partnerships quickly gathered around it. A lease was negotiated with the City’s Parks and Recreation branch (thank you!), with assistance from Sue Bramley, the City’s community garden coordinator. Funding was successfully solicited from Evergreen/Walmart and the Community Foundation of Ottawa. Students from Lady Evelyn Public School (in particular Jennifer Dawson’s class) threw themselves into research and design mode and plans began to take shape. A number of core volunteers—including Annette Hegel, Rebecca Aird, Alan Kenworthy and Erin Kaipainen—put enormous creativity, determination and muscle into making things happen.

A big boon to the development of the garden in its first year was the decision by the Corporate Council on Volunteering (a Volunteer Canada initiative) to adopt it as one of their main annual projects. After an intense few weeks of preparation, senior executives from major Canadian companies, along with students, spent a day installing the picket fence (each picked individually painted by a Lady Evelyn student), the pathway, the seating area and the composter. Instant transformation.

Sandy Hill Community Health Centre has been another invaluable partner in the development of the Garden, as have students from Carleton University, and the University’s Community Service Learning and First Year Experience office.

This year we are very lucky to have been able to hire a fabulous coordinator for the garden, with sponsorship from the Main Farmers Market. This is enabling an increased level of formal and informal programming and events in the garden.

The support we’ve received at both the institutional and staff levels from Sandy Hill Community Health Centre has been invaluable to this project.

Awards

On 5 October 2009, the presentation of awards in the 2009 Ottawa Urban Design Awards competition took place at the Arts Court Theatre (2 Daly Avenue, Ottawa). At the ceremony, the Children’s Garden was awarded the Special Jury Prize.

Special Jury Prize

Children’s Garden of Old Ottawa East, 321 Main Street

The Children’s Garden

Thanks to the work of a dedicated group of volunteers, an underutilized park, which is bordered by a high-speed commuter artery (Main Street), has been transformed into Ottawa’s first and only Children’s Garden. The space has become an urban sanctuary for the young, a place where children can till the soil, plant seeds, hunt for bugs, pick berries and hide away in a bean tepee. They come to the garden to have fun, but along the way come to understand how the natural world works and how we can produce our own food in an organic, sustainable environment. The Garden is a place built for the community, by the community. As it has taken shape, new relationships have taken root and they continue to grow, as the Garden — which will always be a work in progress — evolves.

“This project breaks-down the barriers and professionalism in planning. It involves a community taking ownership of its open space through successful engagement – a sentiment we need more of. The garden is imaginative and uses delight and whimsy in defining a community space. This project demonstrates that a park can capture the imagination of children through proper dialogue, inclusiveness and clever educational programs, without building a traditional play structure.”

Students and staff at Lady Evelyn Alternative School (Jennifer Dawson’s class, in particular); Sustainable Living Ottawa East; past and current members of the Children’s Garden Advisory Group, including Annette Hegel, Alan Kenworthy, Rebecca Aird, Aamina Badran, Denise Landry, Stephanie Pineau, Isabelle Leclerc-Morin, Candace Hebert, Chris Osler, Erin Kaipainen, Leah McDonald, Michael Friedman, Justin Van Dyk, Julia Sneyd and Mike Shahin; Sue Bramley, Renée Proteau, Paul McCann, Debbie Hamiliton, Doug Flowers, Dave Mcleod and Gilles Roy, City of Ottawa; Sandy Hill Community Health Centre; Student Experience Office of Carleton University; Christiana Fizet, Summer 2009 Garden Co-ordinator; Main Farmers’ Market; Corporate Council on Volunteering; Community Foundation of Ottawa; Walmart-Evergreen Green Grants; Brian Sindall, Construction Lines; Jeremie Dicaire, Trim to Perfection

(Source: http://www.ottawa.ca/residents/planning/design_awards/2009_awards_en.html)

On 4 October 2009, the day before the formal presentation of the awards, the Ottawa Citizen published the following story:

Children’s Garden wins special design award

By Maria Cook, The Ottawa Citizen

Photo by Wayne Cuddington
The Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — Beyond an arched cedar gate in Old Ottawa East lies a luxuriant new public garden, planted with sunflowers, lavender, parsley, pumpkins, tomatoes and more.

This is Ottawa’s first Children’s Garden, located at 321 Main St. at the corner of Clegg street in Robert Legget Park.

The organic garden, created by community volunteers and children, has won a special jury award in the City of Ottawa’s 2009 Ottawa Urban Design Awards, presented Monday evening.

“The garden is imaginative and uses delight and whimsy in defining a community space,” wrote the jurors.

“This project breaks-down the barriers and professionalism in planning,” they wrote.

“It involves a community taking ownership of its open space through successful engagement — a sentiment we need more of.

“This project demonstrates that a park can capture the imagination of children through proper dialogue, inclusiveness and clever educational programs, without building a traditional play structure.”

The awards celebrate projects built in Ottawa between September 2007 and September 2009 that exhibit urban design excellence.

The jurors were Ian Chodikoff, editor of Canadian Architect magazine, award-winning Toronto architect Peter Clewes, and landscape architect Linda Anne Irvine, manager of parks and open space development at the Town of Markham.

Over the past two years the garden “has been transformed from an unused patch of grass into a magical space that once you enter it is easy to forget about the world beyond the gates,” says volunteer Aamina Badran.

“It has become a real community hub for adults to volunteer and for children to explore, learn and enjoy.”

The half-acre park beside busy Main Street is surrounded by a picket fence, painted with colourful patterns by children from nearby Lady Evelyn Alternative School.

Inside, a stone path meanders through flower and vegetable beds. A seating circle tucked under trees awaits story-telling while a sandpile invites digging. There’s a composter, potting table, benches and rain barrel.

It is “an urban sanctuary for the young, a place where children (and their grown-up friends) till the soil, plant seeds, hunt for bugs, pick berries and hide away in a bean teepee,” says the group’s award submission.

“They come to the garden to have fun, of course, but along the way they come to understand a little better how the natural world works and how we can produce our own food in an organic, sustainable environment.

“The Garden is about more than nurturing food and flowers. It’s about creating a public space that nurtures the spirit.”

Badran was inspired by the Children’s Garden in Toronto’s High Park. She found like-minded people at Sustainable Living Ottawa East (SLOE), a community group that serves as an incubator for sustainable projects.

The organizers received grants of $10,000 each from the Community Foundation of Ottawa and the Wal-Mart-Evergreen Green Grants Program.

“It was fairly easy to make the case to the City that this particular park had a higher purpose,” says Rebecca Aird, president of SLOE.

Lady Evelyn students developed a garden design plan and staked out locations of vegetable beds, paths and seating area.

“Right from the start, there was a clear commitment to not just ‘doing’ the garden for children, but having children engaged in the planning, decision-making and implementation of the garden,” says Aird.

Many groups helped, including Sandy Hill Community Health Centre, Carleton University’s Community Service Learning Program, Growing Up Organic (Ottawa Chapter) and the Ottawa East Community Activities Group.

The Corporate Council on Volunteering adopted it as one of their main projects. In September 2008, senior executives from major Canadian companies, including Home Depot, Microsoft and UPS, completed the path and installed the fence, seating area and composter.

Badran designed the latched gates, notice boards and arched main entrance with rainbow-coloured letters.

It has been a busy place with play groups, planting parties and special events such as an Easter egg hunt.

At a harvest festival a few days ago, children dug potatoes, picked tomatoes and beans and sampled squash soup.

“At the grand opening last year I couldn’t believe my eyes to see the transformation that unfolded, it was more beautiful than I could have imagined,” says Badran.

(Source: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/Children+garden+wins+special+design+award/2068849/story.html)