Future Site of our Grizzly Garden
Please click on the map, to visit the area where our 1/2 acre school-community garden will be located.
Positioned near Macdonald Drive Elementary and Macdonald Drive Junior High, and on the Virginia River walking trail system, our Grizzly Gardens will allow for easy access to outdoor teaching, learning, and wellness opportunities.
Both the physical design of the garden and the types of foods grown in the garden will be focused on accessibility and inclusivity for all gardeners who grow with us.
Our Garden Features
From the outside-in, the garden will be surrounded by a 7-foot fence, with gates that will allow for walkers who have traditionally used the trail system to walk through and see the garden. The gates will be opened during the day and secured at night.
While there is some trade-off of aesthetics, with respect to the fence, we believe it will be essential to protect our garden infrastructure and crops. We are hoping to use greenery such as trees, bushes and climbing plants to better integrate the fence into the overall gardenscape.
With accessibility and inclusivity being a central part of our vision for the Grizzly Gardens, the garden will feature raised garden beds to allow ease of access and maintenance for all gardeners.
In addition, to our basic raised beds, we will also have pathways and beds that will provide garden access to users who avail of mobility assistance devices such as wheelchairs, rollators, and walkers.
As an extension of both Macdonald Drive Elementary and Junior High Schools, the garden will have teaching and learning spaces, including an outdoor classroom space featuring stones for seating.
The garden will also have bench seating, throughout, for anyone who wants to sit and relax in the garden. These will be built and finished by our students and volunteers.
Although the garden will be largely dedicated to producing fruits and vegetables that are more easily grown in our particular climate, we are hoping to have at least one greenhouse on site that we can use for producing seedlings and for growing more climate sensitive plants.
The garden will feature a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as medicinal and ornamental plants, bushes and trees - as chosen by the gardeners. There will be a special focus placed on cultivating crops that represent the diverse cultures within our school community. If our climate can support its production, we want to support the growers.