Carbondale's Greenways Pedestrian Bike Path
extends from Grand Avenue to Walnut Street
parallel to Piles Fork Creek (aka Pyles Fork Creek).
Starting in 2013, Keep Carbondale Beautiful sought to highlight both ends of the Greenways trail, but the south end, at Grand Avenue, has been more successful. Amazing what a layer of wood chips can do, just sitting on top of clay and rocks. We planted a lot, but the ones that made it were grasses (big bluestem, prairie dropseed, little bluestem) and flowers (asters, black-eyed susan, compass plant). In 2014 we added milkweed, butterfly weed, and beautyberry.
extends from Grand Avenue to Walnut Street
parallel to Piles Fork Creek (aka Pyles Fork Creek).
Starting in 2013, Keep Carbondale Beautiful sought to highlight both ends of the Greenways trail, but the south end, at Grand Avenue, has been more successful. Amazing what a layer of wood chips can do, just sitting on top of clay and rocks. We planted a lot, but the ones that made it were grasses (big bluestem, prairie dropseed, little bluestem) and flowers (asters, black-eyed susan, compass plant). In 2014 we added milkweed, butterfly weed, and beautyberry.
Fall 2012 Before we started the Garden on Grand.
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Summer 2014 After a year and a half of work
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Sonja and Lee planting shrubs at the Dorthella end of Greenways Trail. Fall 2013. This proved unsustainable.
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Garden on Grand - between Pinch Penny and Papa Johns, where Piles Fork Creek re-surfaces on north side of Grand Avenue.
Ups and downs of gardening
The photos below were taken in 2015 before a driver mistook the garden for a driveway and took out sign and fence, not to mention several plants. We recovered from that (but lost the sign). One native honeysuckle plant succumbed to spraying in 2016.
More Ups and downs of gardening
Flash flooding in late April 2017 removed soil down to the culvert (see below, middle). The amazing bluestem maintained its integrity, even when the earth dropped out from under it. We salvaged many plants, putting them in pots off-site. The City filled in riprap and dirt, and we started again: topsoil, plants, mulch.
In 2018 we noticed there are more deer using the site, and that affects our choice of plants.