The aim of the Guelph Enabling Garden is to provide a fully accessible working/teaching garden for all Guelph and community citizens. It is designed to be a destination for visitors to enjoy nature and the healing it provides. It will be a garden that can be both actively used and passively enjoyed. Workshops will be offered throughout the year that relate to various gardening aspects including assisting those with their own garden challenges, as well as for school-aged children, seniors and those with varying abilities.
Glynis Logue has worked with GEG since 1999 to design the garden and coordinate the building of Phase One. Contact her at (519) 763-7510 if you have any specific questions about the garden's detail.
Phase One of the plan includes
a woodland garden, spiral garden, outdoor sculpture gallery and community
garden plots.
You will enter the garden on a main pathway built to accommodate wheelchairs,
walkers and clients with low vision. The surface will be smooth and flat,
with good traction. The pathway will have textural and visual markers and
will be wide enough to allow 2 wheelchairs to pass.
The fully accessible community garden plots will highlight teaching, working and growing your favorite plants. You will find raised garden planters built at different heights for those in wheelchairs and those who wish to sit or stand. A wooden arbour and hanging baskets will create a sense of enclosure for workshops. Next to this area will be a fully accessible shed to house our supplies, water and hydro access. Ground beds will also be built to connect the community garden with a gallery of sensory sculptures.
Carry on through the garden and you will come to a spiral garden that looks over the river and a quiet wooded area to rest and enjoy nature. Sit under a native tree, listen to the birds or enjoy a picnic.
The Guelph Enabling Garden will be a unique experience that stimulates all senses through active and passive spaces.
Plantings used in an enabling
garden are chosen for fragrance, texture, sight, sound, and taste. Native
plants will be used to demonstrate how we can learn to grow gardens that
do not rely on water and chemicals. Environmental gardening will also be
explored through activities such as composting.
Contact Us: Joan Mathieu (519) 763-2804 enablinginfo@sympatico.ca
*Guelph Enabling Garden design and details by Glynis Logue | Web site designed and maintained by Lynn Tessaro