Gardens at Noelridge Park entered in national competition

Becki Lynch stood on a walkway running through a well kept garden, a worn pair of work gloves and weeds clutched in her hands, wearing a shirt adorned with Kermit the frog urging you to 'Come to the Green Side.”

'September is when it will reach maturity,” Lynch said as she peered over a garden bed at Noelridge Park, which have been All-America Selections display gardens for several years. 'There will just be waves of color.”

Lynch's green thumb has been active in designing two flower and vegetable beds at Noelridge Park to compete in the All-America Selections' Landscape Design Contest.

This will be the first year that Noelridge Park will have beds in the garden entered in the national competition. The gardens, positioned near the city greenhouse that produces 65,000 to 70,000 flowers and plants for public grounds and parks across Cedar Rapids, are open to the public to view and help gardeners decide what plants they should use themselves.

'We've been an All-America garden for years,” said Kristie Benzine, the greenhouse lead for the city of Cedar Rapids. 'The last couple of years they (All-America Selections) have started to run these contests. I never had time and I kept watching this contest thinking, this would be kind of fun.”

Benzine, who has worked with the city since 1984, sent out an email asking for volunteers to lead the design of the gardens. She got back two emails, not from people volunteering themselves, but volunteering Lynch.

'She's just very exuberant. Whatever she says people do,” said Benzine on Lynch. Lynch was a recipient of the City of Cedar Rapids Citizenship Award in early June.

This year's competition requires that the display gardens use some type of container and at least 50 percent of the plants used in the design must be All-America Selections plants. These plants have been found by the organization to be the most robust and grow well.

Lynch said that since they were already using a theme of natural willows, they made their containers and other design elements out of that material. Lynch also wanted to incorporate elements that would be conducive for a butterfly habitat. Because of this, host plants, such as Milkweed, and nectar plants were planted in the gardens.

'When you have a milkweed, you know you have success if the leaves are eaten,” explained Lynch. 'If you have a perfect milkweed plant, you've failed. They (butterflies) lay their eggs on them, they hatch and the larva eat the leaves.”

Three educational sessions for the public will be held at the garden throughout the summer. The first will be held on July 9 in conjunction with the municipal band concert and farmers market. Several Linn County Master Gardners will offer tours of the gardens and answer questions from 5:30 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.

'The biggest end goal is just education, that is what we're always about,” said Benzine of the gardens. 'We all want to win this contest. But we also know ... the first year you enter you might not win.”

The gardens are part of the Blue Zones project and have also been utilizing volunteers from the nearby Goodwill of the Heartland. Lynch and other volunteers weed and work in the gardens each Tuesday morning.

'I just am having so much fun. The camaraderie, the purpose to do something good for the community and to be a part of improving information for the community,” said Lynch, 'it's (the gardens) just a wonderful place to go. Everything about it has been a joy.”

Educational sessions will be held at the gardens in Noelridge Park on July 9, August 21 and September 7. Results of the competition will not be known until this fall.

If you go:

l What: All-America Selection Garden Tours

l When: 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. Wednesday

l Where: Noelridge Park, Cedar Rapids

l Cost: Free

l Comments: katelynn.mccollough@sourcemedia.net