As the weather warms up, the Academy for GOD is entering its final quarter of the year! This means students will be returning weekly to the Hopewell Gardens site to learn about and participate in the spring season's activities.
While the garden site has always been an excellent educational resource for natural sciences, enduring the summer heat there hasn't always been comfortable. Last fall, the Academy for GOD introduced a series of shade cloths at the garden for much of their instructional time. This spring, we've upgraded by adding a new 8-foot-tall trellis wall along the entire eastern side of the shade cloths.
Constructed primarily from locally sourced eastern red cedar from Grant Cedar Mill in Lebanon, TN, the trellis is designed to be structurally sound enough to support a variety of vining crops (likely luffa). This will create a dense, green living wall that provides pleasant natural shade and a cooling effect for the space underneath.
Amidst the many different projects and urgent tasks of general garden maintenance and planning, Hopewell Garden's primary goal of enhancing its capacity as an educational resource means that projects such as beautification and hospitality are prioritized. Achieving this aspect of the garden was challenging in previous years.
This space will also serve our youth from Workwell who will be at the garden throughout the summer. The Garden has had a reputation for being a challenging environment to work in, due to Nashville's climate extremes. We hope that the addition of this trellis wall will enhance the garden's environment in such a way that the space becomes more pleasant both to look at and to work in.