news-record.com

GREENSBORO - Cove Creek Gardens is a peaceful, little pocket of beauty that poses an important question for the burgeoning neighborhood around it - and for the larger community.

Who gets to appreciate green space and the lovely symmetry of public gardens right close to home? Just rich folks?

Or do such working-class, ethnically diverse areas as the Brightwood neighborhood in northeastern Greensboro also merit a place in the sun?

"This will always be a place for the public, the community and the neighborhood to come to," said Nancy Cavanaugh, one of the gardens' founders. "We want Brightwood to have that here. We think this community is deserving of that."

The gardens, a series of interlocking outdoor "rooms" that display different forms of horticulture, are open to the public three mornings a week. Visitors can just soak up the beauty or learn how it is created and sustained.

The surrounding neighborhood once was an enclave of early African American landowners. Now, it's a melting pot that also includes Native Americans, Latinos, Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese.

The manicured gardens stand out in this area that still retains some of its rural character. They adjoin Greensboro's newest park land, a 7.2-acre tract sold recently to the city by the gardens' nonprofit organization, staffed by Cavanaugh and co-founder Julia Blizin.

Plans for the new space, Brightwood Community Park, include trails and a tree preserve.

Blizin and Cavanaugh's nonprofit project, now almost a quarter century in the making, is a multisided spot open to residents citywide, Brightwood neighbors and students from elementary to grad school.

"I really believe it's one of Greensboro's best kept secrets," said Marihelen Glass, professor of horticulture at N.C. A&T. "People just don't know it's there, yet it's such a wonderful place."

The founders' credo is taking care of the environment at every turn, conserving water, preserving native plants and teaching the next generation about the world's natural wonders.

On the teaching end, they offer hands-on learning to UNCG and N.C. A&T students working toward degrees in such areas as horticulture, agricultural design and nonprofit management.

Glass brings students of plant-material design and landscape architecture to learn from Blizin and Cavanaugh, retired horticulturists and garden designers who have lived on the property since 1970. Students also do long-term internships on site.

In addition, Cavanaugh and Blizin made a place at the garden's table recently for Guilford County's Newcomers School, which serves new students of other nationalities.

Children from Myanmar, Cambodia, Mexico and Nigeria went to day camp there, said Angel Katona, school social worker. They learned about North Carolina's native plants, grew "dish gardens," caught tadpoles and studied their life cycles.

"It was wonderful because my students all come from lands where they depend on the land for survival," said Katona, contrasting that heritage with the densely packed urban landscape where most live now. "They were able to recover that missing piece."

The two founders stress sustainability in keeping the gardens looking their best. For example, the 18-inch-deep sunken garden is dotted with small, green plants called "frogbits," which reduce algae. The remaining algae is food for the goldfish, whose excrement nourishes all the plants.

"So if you take a bucket of water out of here and pour it on plants, you're not only watering them but feeding them, too," Blizin said.

Among their influential supporters, the two co-founders count Mayor Yvonne Johnson, who serves on their board of directors and says she is "inspired by the passion they bring."

Similarly, Tara Sandercock of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro says it's amazing the many directions their "fabulous vision" takes the gardens, from neighborhood projects to outreach programs with Native American groups in western North Carolina.

But it always does come back to the neighborhood for Cavanaugh and Blizin. After all, it's where they've lived and worked 38 years.

And perhaps more importantly, it's where they first dreamed of building something of great beauty in a place that it seemed least likely to put down roots and survive, let alone thrive.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com