Lone Tree to get first community garden

Lone Tree will be getting its first community-wide community garden next year and the city wants resident input.

That's why Lone Tree is holding a meeting on Oct. 20 with Michael Buchenau, executive director and landscape architect for Denver Urban Gardens, who will be leading the design of the garden.

Jennifer Drybread, senior planner in the community development department for Lone Tree, said Denver Urban Gardens will be collecting resident input that will inform the garden's uses, purpose and character, or the spirit of the garden, such as what events the community holds at the garden. The non-profit has helped to design and construct 140 community gardens around the Denver Metro area, 35 of which are at local schools. That's important because this new community garden will be located at Lone Tree Elementary, a site Drybread was chosen for its central location.

Angela Hamel of Edgewater waters a garden plot at the Saints Community Garden at Jefferson High School in Edgewater on Monday, July 21, 2014. The garden is part of the Denver Urban Gardens. (Cyrus McCrimmon, Denver Post file)

She said a survey done last year found 212 Lone Tree residents were interested in a community garden.

"When we did the survey we found a lot of people were interested in having a community garden and as the city builds more housing units, there's going to be more of a demand for that," Drybread said.

Drybread said the site would probably accommodate 20-25 plots, plot fees yet to be determined, and the garden would open in spring 2015.

After Denver Urban Gardens finishes a sketch of the new garden, there will be a period of fundraising before its constructed. Lone Tree Mayor Jim Gunning said it was important the city not fund the garden so there was significant buy-in from the community members.

"Our job was to help them find a location so that it can be a community garden," Gunning said. "We didn't want them to have to travel 10-15 minutes outside the community people weren't interested in that. They wanted something that was close enough that they could do something in the middle of the day."

Drybread said the idea has been in the making for a few years and Gunning said there's been a lot of talk in the community about a community garden in recent years.

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Lone Tree to get first community garden