GARDENING 2006: Spring Planting with Goldman Sachs and Community Volunteers
Saturday May 6th
Spring Planting & Garden Cleanup in Hamilton Park
This spring we decided to "go for it" by adding four good size specimens to the gardens. Cedar Grove Nursery delivered two Colorado Blue Spruce trees and two Blue Atlas Cedar trees (skinny trees with tiny little pinecones). The guys pulled together to manuever these into the dolly and hoist them up over the beds, through the openings in the fence and get them to their places. This took some time as the holes needed to be large enough to accommodate the root balls. The trees look fabulous and the garden is really starting to take shape.
More perennials and annuals were added and volunteers recycled the left over rocks by creating little gardens within the garden itself. It really adds a homemade touch and isn't something you see in an urban setting. But it's here in Hamilton Park and they really are very special.
Let me first start out by thanking the FVVP and the Jersey City Parks Coaltion for their assistance and support. And if you missed this event, there will be three more park planting events coming up in Pershing Field, Ercel Webb Park and Van Vorst Park as part of Project Camelot.
Thank you to Basic Foods for donating the platters of pecan cookies to compliment our lunch consisting of deli meat sandwiches, tuna and hummus with pita breads and olives. We snacked on these throughout the day, before during and after lunch.
Thank you to the Dept. of Parks & Forestry for delivering the mulch, top soil, wheel barrels, shovels and for coming back to clean up the mess we made.
Thanks to the hard working community residents that volunteered to spend the day with us and worked so hard, including the team that tackled that super gross, overgrown area around the gazebo. (They were too busy working to join us in the group photo!) It took them all day to cut back the bushes, shrubs and clean out the bags of litter so that we can see what's going on in there, keep it safe, and prepare the area for some smaller but attractive future plants.
And lastly, a tremendous big thank you to Goldman Sachs. We've been looking forward to this day and it was a lot of fun working together. We hope you'll come back again next year as you're always welcome. Hamilton Park is a whole lot better because of you and we appreciate it and dig our tee-shirts and caps! Our hearts say thank you!
