Mt Laurel establishes community, native plant teaching garden

Mt Laurel has long had a community garden where residents could stop by to pick fresh ingredients for that night’s meal. In November, however, that garden’s purpose expanded.

The town’s previous community garden, Common Ground, existed for more than a decade on a vacant lot in Mt Laurel. When it came time to sell that lot, it had to relocate. Around that time, Mt Laurel was hosting the Southern Living idea house, and a new opportunity arose.

“Last year, we hosted the Southern Living 50th Anniversary Idea House here in Mt Laurel, and the Southern Living team asked if we would also build a Southern Living Idea Garden for the celebration,” said Ray Jackson, vice president of sales and marketing for Mt Laurel. 

One of Southern Living’s suppliers constructed a vernacular garden cottage to go in the garden and shipped it to Mt Laurel in October. After that, they created a new community garden. This garden, however, combined Common Ground’s fresh produce with a native-plant-teaching garden.

“The front beds are native plants because in Mt Laurel, we require all homes to use native plantings for their landscaping,” Jackson said.

Native plants were selected with guidance from Sue Webb of Petals from the Past, a native plant garden in Jemison. 

“In Alabama, we are very fortunate to have so many plants from which to choose. Planting native for us is not a sacrifice, but a way to make our homes and gardens more beautiful and make them more functional for wildlife, birds, bees and butterflies,” Webb said.

Because Mt Laurel residents only are allowed to plant native plants in their yards, the teaching garden allows a location to see how plants look in real life in the Mt Laurel environment, Jackson said.

“People are extremely excited about it because, up until this garden was planted with the natives in the front, the only way they could see what they [the plants] looked like was to go online … or look at a magazine,” Jackson said. “Now they can actually see the plant growing live in this environment, and there’s no question about it.”

All of the plants are also functional for wildlife, meaning they help attract birds, bees and butterflies, Jackson said. 

Behind the native beds are raised beds with produce, mainly vegetables with a high yield such as tomatoes, eggplant, okra, peppers, cucumber and squash in order to best use the small space, Jackson said.

 “The garden itself was designed by Mt Laurel resident David Brush,” he said. “He’s a landscape architect, and he designed a beautiful garden with a beautiful layout and a beautiful picket fence.”

The garden was planted and will be maintained by the Garden Group, which helps maintain plantings around the community including the arboretum and corner beds throughout the community. 

As a town that was established with the idea of being in concert with nature, Jackson said gardening is one of the factors that attract people to Mt Laurel.

“One of the big things that’s a differentiator about this community is that it has a garden that’s for the community and managed by the community,” he said.