The Daily Progress
of Charlottesville, Virginia
Lifestyles Section

Landscaping project cultivates community spirit

As you enter the Ivy Creek Natural Area's new education building, just look up and you'll be greeted by an intricately detailed wooden owl.	The next step for the Ivy Creek Natural Area's new building, shown here under construction, will be landscaping by the Rivanna Garden Club. The design includes plants selected to suit the needs of people and wildlife.

Community effort has brought about community reward.

Not long after the new education building was completed at the Ivy Creek Natural Area, word came down from the Garden Club of Virginia that the Rivanna Garden Club was selected to receive the 1997 Common Wealth Award, a $5,000 award that will go to the landscaping project around Ivy Creek's new building.

The Ivy Creek Natural Area is a 215-acre preserve located two miles north of Charlottesville and maintained by the Ivy Creek Foundation. It was first established 20 years ago by citizens who rallied for the preservation of a farm and wooded area that was going to be developed. The land is now jointly owned by Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville and maintained as a natural area reserved for hiking and wildlife observation.

The site has even more significant history. Hugh Carr, a freed slave, acquired the property for his family farm in the late 1800s. He sent his six daughters to college, including his eldest daughter, Mary Carr Greer.

She became a prominent educator in the community, serving as principal of Albemarle Training School until the 1950s. Greer Elementary school is named after her. With the help of Greer's husband, Conley Greer, a county extension agent, the farm became a showcase of advanced farming techniques.

Today, many programs are offered at the natural area, including a school tour program that provides local children with environmental education. In 1996 tours were provided to almost 3,500 children. However, program possibilities in the colder months were limited because the only building was an unheated barn which was too cold from November through March. The new, rustic, one-story facility was sorely needed.

Dede Smith, Ivy Creek Foundation coordinator, said several groups have already made use of the building, such as the Sierra Club, the Virginia Wildlife Center, the Nature Conservancy and Piedmont Virginia Community College.

"The possibilities that this opens up are already beyond our expectations," Smith said. "It will be used by many community groups that offer programs that have to do with the environment."

While the building is complete and already being used, the one thing left to do is landscaping around it, which is where the garden club award comes in.  Smith said the foundation plans to use native trees and shrubs.

"It's a blank canvas right now, completely unlandscaped," Smith said.

The foundation will be incorporating a passive solar design, which means tall deciduous trees will be planted on the south side of the building, Smith said. These trees will provide shade in the summer and allow the sun through in the winter after the leaves have dropped.

Smith said the trees and shrubs will be chosen for aesthetic value and historic appeal as well as fall foliage, seasonal bloom and benefit to wildlife. For instance, butterflies and hummingbirds play a vital role in the pollination process, so plants such as Carolina silverbell and red buckeye, which attract them, may be chosen.

With the landscaping and low stone wall that the foundation hopes to have right outside the door of the building, this area will serve as "adjunct space", Smith said.

Other possible landscaping choices include scarlet oak, a native tree that attracts birds and provides colorful fall foliage; smoketree, a native tree that rarely grows in the wild but provides unique flowers; and American Elm, which resists disease.

"This is an important award," Smith said. "We're thrilled to get it. This is one more component to what has been an overwhelming community effort."

As for the Rivanna Garden Club's part in securing the award, president Jane Kerewich said that many of their board members are actively involved at Ivy Creek, serving on the foundation board, or serving as wildflower or wildlife walk guides, and the education building was important to them.

"We thought it would be a wonderful thing for the whole community," Kerewich said.

The Rivanna Garden Club submitted a detailed application (a notebook full of background information about the Ivy Creek Natural Area and the education building project) and was a finalist along with the Petersburg Garden Club.  Kerewich said all the garden clubs in the state voted at the meeting in Petersburg.

"And, by George, we won," Kerewich said.

"This award is a wonderful honor for us, but most of all, we're so happy that the community will benefit from it."

The Rivanna Club previously won the Common Wealth Award for a project to replant the arboretum at the Miller School when it was destroyed by a tornado. The Common Wealth Award was established in 1980 by the Garden Club of Virginia to assist the garden clubs with projects that benefit their communities in conservation, horticulture, preservation or education.

The Rivanna Garden Club has 50 active members and 20 associates. It was organized in 1922 and just celebrated its 75th anniversary.

The garden club's money is added to the funds that were already contributed by four foundations, including the Perry Foundation, Charlottesville-Albemarle Community Foundation, Beirne Carter Foundation and Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation.

Contributions from 75 members of the Ivy Creek Foundation brought in $26,250, while community groups contributed another $3,000 and local businesses including Pepsi Cola, NationsBank, Crestar and Virginia Power contributed another $5,200.  Several companies contributed such in-kind donations as siding and paneling, lumber, slate, concrete and stone.

If you'd like to be a part of the community effort, Smith said, the building project "still has a lot of needs."

Call (434) 973-7772 for more information, or send your tax-deductible donation to the Ivy Creek Foundation, P.O. Box 956, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902.