Peace gardens are not necessarily elaborate or expensive gardens, says Dick Bennett, founder of the Omni Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology and the 10-year-old Omni Peace Garden Tour, which takes place Saturday.
"I had a miserable garden the first year (in 2006), but it was on the tour," he says. And then, he adds, the annual event grew organically from there. Fans wanted vegetable gardens included, and they were. Supporters offered zen gardens, bamboo gardens and meditation gardens for perusal.
FYI
Gardens On Tour
Tri Cycle Farms
1705 N. Garland Ave.
Peace Gardener: Don Bennett
Tri Cycle Farms is a nonprofit, volunteer-based community farm. Current gardens include a 9,000-square-foot annual/perennial diversity garden, a 5,000-square-foot keyhole children’s pollinator garden and a new 1,200-square-foot market garden.
Geshe’s Garden of Peace & Joy, Health & Happiness
235 Louise St.
Peace Gardener: Geshe Dorjee
The garden is a resource that brings physical and psychological strength needed by humanity, to achieve love and joy, peace and happiness, he says.
Give Bees A Chance
745 N. Sequoyah Drive
Peace Gardeners: Ellis Ralph & Judi Neal
The garden was an empty back yard three years ago and now has beds filled with iris, Rose of Sharon, herbs, hostas, a few veggies and many bee- and bird-friendly plants. This is year two with honeybee hives.
Garden of Peace & Tranquility
517 E. Prospect St.
Peace Gardener: Frank Burggraf
After a stroke Burggraf, a professional landscape architect, planted a “quickie garden” that has since grown to include water features, sculpture, decks, a terrace and many favorite plants including iris, hostas and Japanese maples.
Holland Wildflower Farm
290 Oneal Lane, Elkins
Peace Gardeners: Julie & Bob Holland
One hundred years of flower planting and the last 30 as an experimental nature garden, Holland Wildflower Farm is a hodgepodge of old-fashioned perennials mixed with Arkansas native trees, shrubs and flowers.
Love You To Peaces Garden
232 Adams St.
Peace Gardeners: Susan Shore & Michael Cockram
Three towering oaks, 11 Japanese maples, a variety of tree and herbaceous peonies, ornamental grasses and a multitude of other plants call themselves “Love You To Peaces Garden” because they all get along.
Peace of Our Hearts Garden
1007 S. Morningside Drive
Peace Gardeners: Ralph Nesson & Kate Conway
These gardeners find delight in planting and reseeding a myriad of flowers: larkspur, hollyhocks and four o’clocks along the front fence, clematis, zinnias, purple coneflowers, marigolds and peonies in the front yard. In back are snow on the mountain, snapdragons, a lovely dwarf magnolia and a rosebush by a treehouse for their grandchildren.
No Plant Left Behind Peace Garden
5 E. Davidson St.
Peace Gardener: Emily Kaitz
Rock gardens adorn the front yard with chaotic flowering plants and a tiny lawn containing a unicorn sculpture; a flagstone “peace path” leads to the terraced shade gardens in back.
World Peace Wetland Prairie
1121 S. Duncan Ave.
Peace Gardeners: Lauren Hawkins & Aubrey Shepherd and Friends of World Peace Wetland Prairie
A sanctuary for human beings and other living things in the upper White River basin and one of hundreds of peace gardens worldwide, the Wetland Prairie is a remnant of Northwest Arkansas’ once abundant wetland prairie ecosystem.
FAQ
Peace Garden Tour
WHEN — 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday
WHERE — Eight gardens around Fayetteville and one in Elkins
COST — $10; tickets are available today at the Omni Center or at any of the gardens Saturday
INFO — 935-4422
"Omni is about peace, justice and ecology, and that includes just about everything," Bennett says.
Now, he says, people come for ideas for their own gardens or, adds Gladys Tiffany, director of the Omni Center, to find peace and perhaps learn how to take it home with them.
"In this very difficult and stressful world, people need to create a place to remember peace."
This year's tour includes nine gardens, but only one of them is open to the public year round. The World Peace Wetland Prairie is a small city-owned nature park -- about 2.5 acres -- at 1121 S. Duncan Ave. in Fayetteville and includes wetland prairie and savanna with hundreds of native plants and the attendant birds, bees and butterflies.
Lauren Hawkins, one of its founders, calls the majority of the park "out back" and says it is as natural -- meaning "wild," she says -- as it ought to be. But visitors to the "front yard" can find a peace garden -- an actual peace sign shape -- filled with native plants; a raised butterfly garden planted with everything butterflies love to eat; and "heritage plants" saved from older homes lost to development -- appropriate, she says, because the acreage was saved from development itself 10 years ago.
"We've been on the garden tour several years, but mostly to let people know we're here," she says. "We're happy if you visit us any time."
While the World Peace Wetland Prairie is free every other day, Saturday's tour costs $10 for all nine gardens. Money raised this year will go toward an Omni-supported civil rights round table, which meets the first Monday of every month, and a shift of focus for the environmental group from study to more active involvement in creating a vision for Fayetteville, according to Tiffany.
-- Becca Martin-Brown
bmartin@nwadg.com
NAN What's Up on 05/22/2015