BRATTLEBORO — Volunteers for the Exit 1 Gateway Project (E1GP) have established their second perennial garden.
The E1GP is a year-old citizens' initiative to transform Exit 1 into an attractive gateway to the town and the state.
Last month, more than a dozen individuals and groups gave their time, energy, and funds to make it work. Martha Ramsey, E1GP facilitator, said the group was pleased it had met its goal of planting the new garden in time to present an appealing welcome to visitors arriving for the Slow Living Summit and the Strolling of the Heifers.
Donations of both materials and funds from Canal Street businesses, area landscaping suppliers, and individuals enabled the group to purchase the soil, compost, mulch, and plants for this garden. Volunteer gardeners joined in three 2-hour sessions on May 19, 25, and 26 to prepare, plant, and water the bed together.
“People are having a really good time doing this,” Ramsey said. “They get to do something they love - gardening - and at the same time make a civic contribution.”
“They are helping lift the spirits of our community,” she continued. “They are helping our economy by making the gateway area more welcoming to visitors from all over. They are expressing their pride in the place where they live and the neighbors who live here with them.”
In the face of the “brutal blows” Brattleboro has sustained from Tropical Storm Irene, the Brooks House fire, and economic recession, Ramsey said, “now is a time when you can really feel good about pitching in to build something to help the community come together.”
A spring beginning
A group of Brattleboro residents got the idea of starting the Gateway project last spring. Some had seen a Planning Commission presentation that showed how landscaping at Exit 1 could help make the area into a beautiful Gateway. As they got excited about making it happen, they realized citizens would need to take the lead.
Last September, amid the disruptions of Tropical Storm Irene and with steadfast help from volunteers and donors, the group was able to plant its first garden. Brattleboro Memorial Hospital agreed to sponsor the landscaping of a small triangular median. In November, a Windham Regional Career Center horticulture class planted daffodils and tulips that bloomed this spring. The spring class is currently raising morning glories and sunflowers that they will plant at the site this summer.
The mission of the Exit 1 Gateway Project is “to celebrate the uniqueness of our community and natural environment by transforming the Gateway to our town and state through local citizens' ongoing efforts.”
Volunteer events to tend the landscape at Exit 1 continue, and the effort is growing.
The E1GP is seeking to raise $6,500 to fund a collaboration with the Conway (Mass.) School of Landscape Design to facilitate the entire community's participation in creating a design and implementation plan for the whole Gateway area, extending from Exit 1 along Route 5 on both the Guilford and Brattleboro sides of the exit.