By William Zajicek, contributor
Seven Princess Kay plums were planted by the West Gate Archway. Five North Wind maples, two Artic Jade maples, nine Macopin Eastern white pine, and seven Blue Mat junipers were planted around the Xiang Jiang Pavilion. The Princess Kay plums are in memoriam for Paul Verret of the Katherine B. Anderson Foundation. Verner was one of the early supporters for this project and the Katherine B. Anderson Foundation has been one of our largest donors. Two maples were purchased and planted in memoriam of Jerry Mealey, Linda Mealey-Lohmann’s late father, and in memory of Kenneth and Patricia Puffer, founders of the Minnesota branch of the US-China Peoples Friendship Association. We also saw some of the peonies planted last fall bloom during this time.
As you might imagine, with the early heat and lack of rain we are experiencing, watering has become a major need for these plantings. I welcome any volunteers who care to assist in the watering of the newly planted trees. If you have a half an hour to spare, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
For me, one of the delightful things that happened was spending half a day at the garden on my own constructing a water storage unit. I really began to see how people are using the garden: A mother came through the pavilion with her children stepping across the rocks, an elderly couple wanders by and thanks me for planting the trees, others came by standing almost stunned having never seen the garden before and then begin taking pictures, a woman sat down at the table and simply looks out for maybe 35 to 45 minutes, a gentleman set up a small sound system and does Karaoke with a flute to Asian background music for nearly an hour.
Stop by, you just don’t know what you will run into at the garden.
Volunteers hard at work:
Completed plantings (for the time being!)
