Next Volunteer Gardens Work Day

TBA

************************************

Email gardening <at> buxmontuu <dot> org to RSVP for the work day. (Drop-ins are also welcome.) We’ll contact you with suggestions on what to bring to keep you comfortable and productive.

What to Bring to a Gardens Work Event

1. Yourself and family members old enough to focus with your supervision.*
2. Hat, work gloves, closed-toe footwear, sweat towel or scarf.
3. Water bottle.
4. Sunscreen and insect repellent. (Keep in mind that ticks/Lyme disease are always a possibility.)
5. Favorite hand tools labelled with your name(!)

Ahead of Time

1. *Let us know if you need child care at least one week ahead of time.
2. If you have physical limitations, let us know so that we can prepare a comfortable task for you(!)

 About Our Location

The BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is located on a three-acre site in Warrington, Pa, bordering the beautiful Little Neshaminy Creek.  Our second-floor sanctuary and social hall, as well as the ground-level religious education classrooms, overlook the creek and gardens.

Entrance Gardens 

Our gardens include flowers, trees, and shrubs in the parking lot and at the main building entrance. Ornamental trees include ‘Arnold Promise’ witch-hazels, which bloom in February/March, fringetrees, and a fragrant sweet bay magnolia as well as showy roses and perennials.

Detention Basin Wild Garden

Growing apace is our Detention Basin Wild Garden, which features a looping path system leading between Spring, Winter, Summer, and Autumn Circles.  This garden, founded in 2009 with two grants¹  ², features mostly native trees, shrubs, wildflowers and grasses selected from the PaFlora list for the Neshaminy watershed.  Of special note are pawpaws, beach plums, hearts-a-burstin’ native euonymus, coralberries, winterberry hollies, and American beech.

Celebration Garden

Between the building and the creek is our Celebration Garden, also first planted in 2009 with grant funding² and additional financial support from BuxMont’s Memorial Garden Fund.  This very large garden consists of the Celebration Lawn surrounded by three long and undulating garden beds. Anchor trees are bur oaks, planted in 2011.  Major trees and many shrubs were selected from woody plants native to the Neshaminy watershed.  With the addition of roses and hydrangeas, and many moisture-tolerant perennials, this garden is designed for year-round display.

For the last several years our pawpaw trees have been yielding signficant amounts of fruit in September. Pawpaws are the largest native fruit in North America. We sell fruit to the congregation and at a farmers’ market. Last year we also experimented with pawpaw ice cream.

Maintenance

Although our lawns are mowed by a contractor (with a volunteer substituting several weeks during the summer), all other maintenance and gardens development is the work of congregational volunteers.  Several of our volunteers have professional expertise and work experience.

Challenges in gardening on our site include deer, geese, ordinary rodents, sometimes beavers, and frequent flooding.  We find it necessary to protect almost all of our plants year round with cages and/or homemade repellent sprays.

Despite animal challenges and the heat of summer, we gardeners rejoice in bird song, the lazy creek, fluttering of butterflies, and the beauty of flowers, leaves, and fruits that surrounds us. 

Contact: gardening <at> buxmontuu <dot> org for more information about BuxMont’s Gardens and Grounds.

________________________

¹from the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania Citizen Education Fund, through Section 319 of the Federal Clean Water Act (US EPA)

²from Aqua Pennsylvania through TreeVitalize Watersheds Program (Pennsylvania DCNR)

(Click on any photo to view it full size.)