A tree doesn’t stay where it’s planted. Unseen, its roots are ever growing, reaching out to connect with an expansive network. Today, the Garden sits on 47 acres where visitors can connect with nature and each other. The support of our members and visitors has enabled us to grow beyond the Garden gates, stretching our roots into the community to build new partnerships and create meaningful change year after year.
Plant donations are a large part of that. Each growing season, alongside improving and maintaining our onsite collection, the Horticulture Team cultivates thousands of plants to give to other Green Bay organizations and initiatives. Director of Horticulture, Mark Konlock, reflects, “We are building community through plants. We are doing that through food – for people and pollinators.”
Pollinator Corridor Project
This past year, the Horticulture Team was hard at work growing thousands of plants for the Pollinator Corridor Project, an initiative of the Green Bay Conservation Corps focused on, “restoring habitats and converting turf grass into native habitat,” says Maria Otto, Conservation Corps Coordinator. The Garden believes in advocating for a habitable world for future generations. This includes preserving the biodiversity of native plants and insects. Through the work of the Green Bay Conservation Corps and the native plants donated by the Garden, nearly 7,000 square feet of turf grass was fully converted to native habitat alongside an additional 10,000 square feet that were improved.
Otto reflected on the impact of the project remarking that the plantings have, “…resulted in numerous pollinator species being seen on site.” She continued, “Right after installing the nearly 4,000 native plants, community members are stopping and enjoying the benefits.”
Wello’s Cultivating Community Program
In Director of Strategic Partnerships, Beth Heller’s words, “Cultivating Community is an innovative food distribution model that decentralizes hunger relief efforts, prioritizing trusted, culturally-specific spaces for food delivery.” This involves local food producers teaming up with Wello to meet community needs, a truly grassroots effort. She continues, “It is a joyful program that builds camaraderie across a wide range of partners and activates the power of good food, farms and community connection.”
This growing season, plants donated by the Garden were received and distributed to local farmers that partner with Cultivating Community. The food that is grown fills in local gaps with an emphasis on serving historically marginalized groups like racial minorities, disabled adults, and refugees. Heller reflected, “The donation was perfect in that it underscored the [Cultivating Community] ethos of everyone getting involved to make it possible for local food producers and gardeners to meet local food needs.”
Branching Out
The Pollinator Corridor Project and Wello’s Cultivating Community Program are just two of many initiatives the Garden has formed partnerships with. Other plant donation recipients include We All Rise African American Resource Center’s All Seasons Transformation House, a transitional living facility for men, and Brown County Community Gardens. Seasonal Harvest LLC also helped to distribute donated plants to even more groups like Door County Farm for Vets, Casa ALBA Melanie, and Vivent Health, just to name a few. Mark reflects, “All these efforts are aimed at solving problems – food insecurity, healthy food availability, habitat loss, biodiversity decline, climate change effects – with plants.”
While the 2024 growing season is slowly coming to a close, our community partnerships are evergreen. This year, we donated upwards of 5,500 plants with additional produce being harvested for Paul’s Pantry with the help of local nonprofit, Aspiro. As the Garden continues to grow, we can’t wait to see what our collective future holds. Thank you, our members and visitors, for enabling us to continue branching out and growing connections in the greater Green Bay and Brown County communities!
