Sister Cities receives donation to repair stroll garden

Isesaki leaders contacted Springfield shortly after the storm and tracked the destruction through photographs from the city and media reports, according to Springfield Public Information Director Louise Whall. (Click here for photos of the garden’s condition after the storm, provided by the city.) Isesaki officials then took up a collection from citizens to help recovery efforts at Springfield’s parks.

The donation, totaling $16,998.52, will buy specialty plants and trees for the stroll garden that are not common to the area or at this time of year, according to Springfield-Greene County Parks Supervisor Cindy Jobe, who has headed up the garden’s development. Larger-than-usual plants and trees also will have to be bought to integrate with the rest of the garden’s mature vegetation.

Though the garden was created in 1985, Jobe said its intended effect had just started to come together a couple of years ago.

“(The storm) took us a step backward, because some of that secluded feeling is now gone,” Jobe said. “But the silver lining of this is that it is giving us a chance to make it better. We’re smarter now than we were when we started planting these things … and we can rebuild it and we can make it better.”

Repair efforts at the garden will begin this spring, but the majority of work will be done this fall, Jobe said. It will be several years before the new plants grow to maturity, she added.

Whall said a recognition ceremony to thank Isesaki for the donation could take place during the city’s annual Fall Festival held at the stroll garden in September.

“Through that donation, it is a way for the citizens of this community to know what the relationship with Isesaki means,” Jobe said.