Community Garden

[Sard]

Between the Marketplace and the Harbor, in a section of run-down tenement housing for the lower working-class residents of the city, lies a recently re-purposed building. It had been a mansion, once upon a time - a great square structure of thick outer walls, the inside sectioned into rooms, with fine tiles on the walls and murals of the high seas. The pride of some pirate. In the center, surrounded by another thick wall, an enclosed garden kept private and invisible from the outside world, where an ancient tree leaned over a tiled, spring-fed fountain, built up from the old natural pool that had predated it before the house was built around them.

The inner garden with its tree and fountain remain, locked away from most people's access, and the ceiling had fallen in on the rest of the house, leaving two layers of thick wall intact as a shell for years until it was purchased and re-purposed. Not another apartment building, but a community garden. Where roofs once covered the building, now there are panes of enhanced, transparent armor, forming the 'glass' ceiling of a greenhouse. The floors are all gone, down to the dirt - but covered now in slabs of slate around broad, low planting troughs, where anyone can come in and claim a spot to plant what they wish. Food, herbs for cooking or to freshen their house, flowers...

There are a few dwarf fruit trees established for any and all to harvest from, peach, apricot and more exotic species, scattered among the planting troughs Each trough is filled with rich soil, but there are also rolling bins kept filled between them with composted manure - excellent fertilizer for plants that need something a little richer. Regularly spaced pumps and buckets provide water, straight from the spring beneath the building.

On the walls, murals have been painted by a variety of local artists via the art gallery PUBLIC, depicting their own interpretation of different traits of nature and gardening. In a nook near the main entrance, sturdy chairs and benches have been set up along with shelves laden with books donated by those who garden there, and a few local bookstores, for those who want to sit a while and read - or those who don't have anyone to watch their children while they take care of their plot.

There's even a wall with tiles mounted on it, for people - children and adults alike - to paint their own bit of art, warded to prevent each piece being tampered with by anyone but the creator, for one week. Then it goes blank again, ready for the next person to use.

The outer doors are never locked, only the one to the hidden inner garden. Outside the building, in a narrow strip of green lawn that never seems to need trimming, and which extends all the way around the building, stands a simple, plain, carved-wood sign. It doesn't list any names, nor any contact numbers. There are no phones within, to call. It simply states all that really needs to be said... 'Community Garden'.


Any mistaking the building for a vulnerable target, ripe for vandalism or destruction, may well find themselves disappointed. It's far from unguarded, it merely holds its guardians in its heart - literally. The tree is home to an elder dryad, the fountain to her partner, an equally ancient naiad, and their influence has been extended to the outer edge of that external strip of lawn through roots and piped water. Any who garden there will find their plants nurtured just a little more, if they start to fail, will find their plots un-tampered with and un-robbed when they come to harvest. Even in the heart of the city, there should be a piece of nature to remind people there's more than pavement and walls to the world.