07/21/2017
Kansas City Star, The (MO)
as provided by The McClatchy Company
October 13, 2010
How the ‘magic garden’ grows
Author: JAMES HART, The Kansas City Star
Section: News
Page: SO6
Article Text:
How does Glenn Stewart’s garden grow? Well, she says it’s magic.
For two years, the documentary filmmaker has tended a tiny plot of ground outside the Westport post office, lining the sidewalk with a rainbow of marigolds, roses and sunflowers.
Neighbors say the garden has helped brighten the northwest corner of Westport Road and Wyandotte Street, which used to be dominated by vagrants. Whenever she’s needed water, plants or moral support, a small army of neighbors, shop owners and donors has appeared out of nowhere to help.
“It’s just been the most wonderful thing,” said Stewart, who calls the project a “magic garden.” Whenever she’s needed something, someone with a good heart and extra mulch has shown up.
She taps her zebra-print sneakers at some decorative stones at one end of the garden. They’re actually bits of tile salvaged from an old slate roof elsewhere in the neighborhood. Ditto for the red bricks and some railroad ties that she painted to match the bricks. ! A friend who works at a nearby car wash gave her a funky-looking, fish-shaped pot for decoration.
She’s got a story for just about everything in the garden. The marigolds, for example, were added after some folks with Tulips on Troost rolled up, said they liked what she was doing and offered her the flowers.
Other additions have been happy accidents. The sunflowers are there only because some seeds fell out of a bird feeder and took root.
“It’s really brightened up the neighborhood,” said Pat Mahoney, the post office’s manager of customer service. “She befriended most of the people in the neighborhood, and they help keep an eye on it.”
Nobody asked Stewart to do this. She’s just the type of person who keeps a small pair of pruning shears in her car. One day in late 2008, she noticed the rose bushes growing outside the post office at 200 Westport Road and asked the employees if it would be OK for her to do a little trimming. No problem, they said.
You might guess tha t Stewart has a big garden at home, but she doesn’t. She rents an apartment, and there’s no room. A Kansas City resident for almost 15 years, she has done voice-over work in commercials and is a substitute teacher in local schools when she isn’t working on her documentaries, which are mostly about the arts and music. She’s working on a piece about the garden.
It wasn’t until 2009, when Stewart was hit by a series of setbacks, including her father’s death and the loss of a job, that she made the garden a bigger project.
“She put in a couple plants, then a couple more,” Mahoney said.
The bright colors draw the eyes of many passers-by, but the garden includes a healthy population of thick native grasses and vegetables, including Brussels sprouts. “I figured nobody would steal those, right?” Stewart jokes.
Not everybody has been thrilled about the garden. The corner used to be popular with vagrants, and several resented Stewart. Her garden was taking over a low wall outside the post office, where they liked to sit. Not all of the vagrants hated her, she notes, but some would tear out the plants. She was harassed a few times and had to duck into the post office because she didn’t feel safe.
“They were furious, and they’d come tear stuff out,” Stewart said.
Several nearby business owners, however, did their part to watch out for her. They remember what the corner looked like before the garden started.
“It was horrible,” said tattoo artist Tony Harrison, who manages The Mercy Seat’s location on Westport. “This end of Westport looked like Skid Row.”
The Heart of Westport Neighborhood Association is another group that has provided resources and moral support, secretary Sheryl Windsor said. The police, the Westport Library, the community improvement district, Mercy Seat — they’ve al! l worked to help make the corner nicer, she said.
The garden has inspired some neighbors and businesses to tackle gardening projects of their own. “People really notice it,” Windsor said.
Stewart doesn’t want to sound “New Agey,” she says, but she hopes the garden helps people slow down and connect a little with nature. As Stewart gives a quick tour of the garden, a man walking into the post office stops her.
“Are you the volunteer?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
WESTPORT
