Thematic/Cultural Gardens

The Study Team explored how various ethnic, cultural or other groups within a neighborhood could create one or more "neighborhood gardens" (memorial or cultural gardens, places for leisure, recreation, celebrations, concerts and festivals) or "community gardens" for growing vegetables, herbs, medicinal plants, unfits, fibers or flowers.

Several sites throughout Lowell that were thought suitable for development into neighborhood or community gardens were identified and photographed. Most of these sites were near or in areas where ethnic or cultural communities once lived and/or may now live. Typically, they were along major streets where they can be observed by the passing public and police for both public safety and visual enjoyment.

The Thematic/Cultural Gardens Team recommended development of a process and guidelines whereby the planning, design and development of any private or public open space would be accomplished by working with the expected users of those spaces. If the users require outdoor spaces related to their specific ethnic, cultural, national or racial roots then designation of those spaces should be considered and, if possible, incorporated into their neighborhoods or into other appropriate places.

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Community gardening was discussed at length, not only as a means of beautification, but also as a community-building mechanism. Community gardens are spaces where individuals and/or groups can grow vegetables and other plants. Community gardening is not a new idea. Community gardening flourishes today not only among people trying to live on low incomes but also among people who desire to live more organically sustainable lives.

Finding land to do community gardening requires creative thinking and action. For instance, land owners could be invited to offer use of their surplus land for gardening based upon a set of user criteria that could be drafted and promulgated by a Community Gardening Club or through a proposed Lowell Garden Center. Perhaps in exchange for providing space for gardening the owners of the land would have some of their remaining landscape maintained or the gardeners would share some of their produce.

Three of the most promising sites for community gardens identified by the Study Team are: the north side of the Merrimack River on Old Ferry Road; a long parcel of land parallel to the east side of the Western Canal along Suffolk Street between Fletcher Street and north to Broadway; and a strip of land abutting the east bank of the Concord River and extending to the Massachusetts Electric Company buildings on Perry Street.

The Thematic/ Cultural Gardens Team looked for additional mechanisms for promoting and integrating the expression of themes or cohere through gardens. They identified four possibilities: a library or section of the Pollard Memorial Library devoted to gardening; educating new gardeners through a newly created Lowell Garden Center as proposed by the Greenways Study Team; encourage the strength of close knit communities; and promote these gardens as an integral element of Lowell: the Flowering City.

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