Designed to showcase the benefits of outdoor play and learning, the Children’s Garden offers an urban yet wild landscape for supervised child-led play and stewardship-based opportunities for people of all ages and abilities visiting Evergreen Brick Works.
The Children’s Garden offers an edible urban landscape alongside opportunities for risky play, showcasing the benefits of outdoor learning and stewardship-based opportunities. With its amphitheatre and fire pit, Guild Garden, edible landscaping of fruit trees and shrubs, gathering areas and rolling terrain, this space is a key part of building a resilient future.
Our urban agriculture beds within the garden offer space to grow familiar veggies and herbs. Garden spaces like these can play a vital role in bringing together community members to work to grow food collectively. They can also teach us some valuable lessons on the value of farms and protected local agricultural land, which are able to produce food on a much larger scale.
Located inside the Children’s Garden, the Guild Garden is designed with children in mind. Made possible by support from Forester’s Financial, the garden is built around a central cherry tree surrounded by many species of plants (including fruit shrubs, berries, vegetables and herbs) to create a rich and diverse garden for children to explore. The plants chosen for this garden support beneficial insects, help deter pests and protect the soil.
Lining the alley leading up the garden, stockpots and metal container were installed in 2021 by Foresters Financial, to showcase a regenerative landscape, while also providing food for both pollinators and people. The art on the planters was designed by Délı̨nę First Nations artist and printmaker Laura Grier.
Milkcrate containers are a legacy left over from the Bowery Project, which seeks to set up mobile urban farms by setting up container gardens in urban lots. Initially installed in 2015 with an urban agriculture focus, the milkcrates were revitalized in 2023 into a native container garden concept. This project aims to demonstrate to visitors that native plant gardens can be planted anywhere, even without a yard. The containers also aim to model the creation of green corridors that connect fragmented pieces of habitat throughout the city; to this end they were planted out with plants donated by Project Swallowtail, which aims to connect greenspaces across the city.
The milkcrate containers in the alley contain edible native plant species. In 2023 they were planted out with the following:
• Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)
• Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata)
• Spotted Beebalm (Monarda punctata)
• Violets (Viola labradorica)
• Wild Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana)
