Comments on: Community Engagement – Gardening in the Front Yard

By: Online Community Links Roundup 26/02/10 | Community Management | Blaise Grimes-Viort

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 12:36:56 +0000

[...] Community Engagement: Gardening in the Front Yard [...]

By: Liz M owner hyperlocavore

Liz M owner hyperlocavore — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:38:17 +0000

Hey Hildy!

I’ve enjoyed your tweets and this is a great piece! We are working on similar projects. My social network is built around the idea of yard sharing. My hope s that neighbors and friends will get together in yard sharing groups to share wisdom and resources and to revive our neighborhoods together. Anyone from anywhere can start a yard share, and we’re her to help you folks do that!

By: Hildy

Hildy — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:15:59 +0000

Shawna –
I knew you would like this one!
HG

By: Shawna Coronado

Shawna Coronado — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 16:05:00 +0000

This is AWESOME! I will be building a veggie garden in my front yard this year and am really excited about it. I love the idea of teaching people how to make a difference!

Great post!

Shawna Coronado
http://www.thecasualgardener.com

By: Hildy

Hildy — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 04:35:15 +0000

Welcome, Cathi. So nice to have a fellow front-yard-gardener (in all ways…)on board! Hildy

By: Cathi Tillman

Cathi Tillman — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 03:30:54 +0000

Thank you, Hildy! I am new to this site and this immediately caught my eye. As an avid gardener (with a front garden, no less!) who is constantly being engaged in conversation with passers-by, I have come to appreciate the raw honesty of our interactions and the transparency of the relationships that are formed. The totally volunteer organization that I run is indeed modeled after that type of relationship-building practice- honesty and transparency. We are able to maintain our organizational practice because we are small and very mission-driven. I sometimes shudder to think of the challenges to this philosophy of practice if we were to become larger and more bureaucratic. We’d have to move the garden to the back and plant hedges in the front!
Thank you for your insights and I look forward to visiting this site for inspiration and fellowship.

By: Hildy

Hildy — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:56:17 +0000

I am laughing, Bonnie, because my thought upon reading your comments was, “Bonnie is always so thoughtful about things!” Imagine the fun of our doing a presentation together one of these days!

We are in California right now, doing workshops with (of all ironies) the various local and regional Fire Safe Councils. And the theme in every one of these sessions, generated by the participants themselves, has repeatedly come back to a need for more engaged communities. Your thoughts, combined with theirs, has led me to pen a few more posts on the subject, including the 11 Ways to “do” such engagement (coming up soon!).

It does indeed require that we think differently. But as the Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we create the world.” HG

By: Bonnie Koenig

Bonnie Koenig — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 13:03:56 +0000

Hildy -

You’re always thought-provoking! but this one especially made me stop and think (and prompted me to write!) about this different way of looking at how our organizations can reorient their thinking to more actively engage with their communities. Many do some of this almost systematically -for example by sending spokespeople traveling and out to speak in the community – but few think about how lots of smalll actions, that naturally introduce parts of themselves into the wider community, can make such a difference. It comes down to a change in mindset (like so many things!?)…are we comfortable quietly gardening out back (and just inviting those we choose to come visit us)? or do want to do more gardening out front (encouraging many we do not yet know to come and start a dialogue with us)?! Thanks for sharing this story!

Bonnie Koenig