Gardens pop thanks to volunteers

Waite Park flower gardens provide beauty, healing, peace... and workouts

By Nikki Rajala

“When I’d be working and weeding in the Healthy Living Trail flower gardens, even though I was only  a few yards away from the street, I’d feel peace. I’m always amazed because there’s busy, busy traffic on the street and I don’t hear it,” said Janice Rein, a volunteer gardener among the landscaped flower beds of the Harold P. Nelson Healthy Living Trail in Waite Park. “Visitors say the same thing — that they relax and don’t notice the noise of trucks and cars whizzing past.”

The Healthy Living Trail is located along Third Street North, extending from Tenth Avenue North to Waite Avenue and includes a dozen or more beds for sun or shade plants as well as 10 exercise stations where visitors can stop for a short workout. The trail is bookended by the StarRail train exhibit near Second Avenue and the outdoor fitness court on Tenth Avenue North, where the River’s Edge Park connects to the Lake Wobegon Trail.

The gardens along the Healthy Living Trail provide a tranquil oasis despite the surrounding urban environment. The flower beds, with annuals and perennials in sunny and shady areas, provide a sense of community, healing and appreciation for nature for the local residents and visitors.

Janice has volunteered in the Waite Park gardens for 16 years, and has retired from the heavy physical tasks of dividing and planting.

“Now I can focus more on secretarial tasks that help Jeanne Lodemeier, our volunteer coordinator. She advises and assists volunteer gardeners in planning and is responsible for ensuring that all the gardens are cared for. She also sends us messages when people are needed for work on a particular day or garden bed,” Janice said.

Janice began working in the Waite Park gardens when she joined the Park Board, which is something she always wanted to do. 

“Because of the needs, we started ‘Flowers for Waite Park’ and the volunteers’ organization later. Though I’m no longer as active, I still attend meetings. I’m sort of a historian, answering questions or making suggestions. When I go on the trail, it’s more for my enjoyment instead of being responsible for working on a bed.”

Still, she helps among the gardens many days, noting that certain lilies which showed a white dusting on their emerging buds would benefit from a treatment. She arrived the next day and spritzed them with a fungicidal spray. 

She also likes to check on what’s blooming in different areas, admiring the variety of colors of astilbe in a shade garden and the queen of the prairie in a sunny spot. Her personal favorites are the lilies.

“I’ve been a gardener since my mom started me with a bed of bachelor buttons,” said Janice. “I was three.”

Janice is one of about 20 to 25 volunteers who take responsibility for tending specific garden beds, flowering boxes or hanging baskets which adorn city buildings, other parks and The Ledge Ampitheater. Each person chooses which areas they want to maintain, based on how many hours each week they can devote to the gardens and whether they prefer working alone or being part of a group, tending a brand new bed or working on a bigger project. People change in different years which gardens they work. Newcomer volunteer gardeners don’t need to bring expertise — just willingness to learn — because others will share information to help them.

“The volunteers are wonderful and we’ve developed good friendships among us over the years. I’ve worked separately and also with other volunteers, depending on the garden. So people are my favorite part about being here,” Janice said.

With her walker, it’s not easy to get around the gardens, so she has a sign for her car: “Volunteer Gardener” that allows her to drive on the Healthy Living Trail, because motor vehicles are prohibited. In fact, all volunteers occasionally need such signs which allow them to haul in equipment or haul out yard waste.

She stops at the sign identifying the Healthy Living Trail in the park, pointing out how the line of images suggests the train cars which once were built in Waite Park.

“Harold Nelson played here as a child. The space was special for him, so he donated this land, but he died before the project could be completed. Now it offers a peaceful and tranquil environment for visitors.”

The reverse side of the trailhead sign suggests ways to begin exercising and make it fun, as well as tips for healthier eating.

Plants for healing

Janice particularly appreciates the medicinal purposes of plants in the gardens. Five tall signs describe some of those plants: yarrow, sage, chamomile, ginseng, cone flower  and wild bergamot. The signs help visitors identify the flowers, their growth conditions and their benefits. For example, the leaves and flowers of sweet violet can be made into a syrup and used for a variety of respiratory illnesses. Tea made from the plant can treat digestive disorders. The relaxing aroma is soothing and relaxing in a bath.

One side of a Medicinal Plant Information sign reads, “Aspirin comes from the juice extracted from the bark of the white willow tree and has been used for pain and fevers as far back as the Romans. The bark juice contains salicylic acid, which was much later synthesized by Felix Hoffman into acetylsalicylic acid. Aspirin was discovered by Bayer in its labs in 1897 and was originally sold as a powder in bags.”

“Actually, all of the plants have medicinal uses, but it’s information we’ve forgotten over time. The Native Americans were very aware of how different parts of plants could be used, and we’ve also learned from some of our Asian families about plants they use,” she said.

“During the Civil War, soldiers who’d been injured used plants to stanch the flow of blood and heal their wounds. They’d see the certain big soft leaves in the woods or along the wayside while they were marching past and would pick them to wrap over a wound instead of a bandage — they knew the leaves would help with healing and close their wound.”

Janice shared lists of plants with healing properties: hosta as an anti-inflammatory and analgesic, bee balm as an antimicrobial and anti-fungal, coral bells as an astringent, astilbe for diarrhea, dysentery and wound healing. She researches the information from several books that she owns as well as checking online sources.

“Just standing under the oaks of the Four Trees garden is healthful and renewing,” she said. “Sometimes we see veterans slowly walking along the trail, taking in its healing aspects.”

In the future, she said, the park board hopes to add a fountain among the signs with Medicinal Plant Information, so that visitors can refill their water bottles and hydrate their pets. The proceeds from the gardens’ annual plant sales held in June will go to help fund this installation.

“These gardens, like other public gardens, are meant to teach visitors about plants. People can see what one plant or another looks like at different times in its growth cycle — how big it gets, if it spreads quickly, how much work it might require if they were to grow peppermint or coneflower or marigold for their own use.”

Those who are particularly interested in the healing properties should research a plant’s uses, learn which parts of the plant are appropriate for their needs and how to best use it, whether to make poultices or brew teas to drink or apply as a wash. They can decide whether to plant one in their own yards.

One of the challenges, Janice said, is keeping the gardens blooming throughout the season.

“Sometimes plants don’t bloom when we expect them to. Some perennials take over areas so other plants — those that will flower next — get crowded out.”

The volunteer gardeners also maintain a reading garden at the Waite Park branch of the Great River Regional Library, at 253 Fifth Avenue North. That garden features a colorful array of flowering plants,  garden benches with poems imprinted into the concrete next to them, a curving path and birdhouses. A stone wall and trellis entrance create a more private space that’s conducive to reading.

“The reading garden is a challenge to keep in bloom constantly,” she noted.

Janice also highlighted the Design garden, in which a young boy had won a contest in 2021 to design the garden.

“Both he and his grandmother had entered the contest, and he won! In the center of that garden was a rounded, built-up area featuring tall grasses with plumes, and it worked for several years, until the soil packed down. The whole garden is now being redesigned — and I’m eager to see what it will include. Our volunteers will have wonderful suggestions about what works and what will look good together.”

Volunteers recently replanted two gardens in Rivers’ Edge, using theme colors of red, white and blue, which is apt around the flagpole.

What is the payoff for the work of these volunteer gardeners?

Whenever she wanders through the gardens, Janice sees people enjoying the Healthy Living Trail. They often stop to speak with her.

“I get many, many thank yous — everything from ‘I really enjoy being here’ and ‘This makes my walking trail wonderful’ to ‘Thank you for doing this.’ We see lots of walkers and bikers and inline skaters and  skateboarders,” Janice said. “And it’s fun when mothers stop to use the exercise stations along the trail with their children or to point out flowers — everybody on the trail seems so happy to be here and enjoy the peace and healing and beauty.”