Gossage Garden

This week is crunch week at Gossage Garden, a triangular shaped park filled with plants, flowers, drinking fountain and gazebo located at the intersection of Cornwall Avenue, Alabama and F Streets. It is the one time of year when the park receives the most visitors.

 “It’s always a panic book because next Saturday is the Ski to Sea Parade and everyone comes to register in the gazebo, so I’m trying to get it looking good, ” said Judy Buchanan, activist, fundraiser, weed puller, flower planter and parks steward at Gossage Gardens for the past 17 years.

Buchanan is a local resident who grew up in the Lettered Streets neighborhood and has served on the parks board and was president of the Lettered Streets Association in 1991. She volunteers her time at the garden for about seven months out of the year from January until the end of May to prep for the parade.

Even though Buchanan suffers from fibromyalgia, she still works through and keeps on gardening. She even calls herself a slow marathon person. 

“I enjoy being outside and gardening because it takes my mind off everything, the endorphins are good,” said Buchanan. “I forget that I’m in pain and it’s therapeutic.”

The Lettered Streets also recently announced in their monthly newsletter that gardener’s are needed as well as paint touch up ad trimming, and to call Judy Buchanan for more information.

“All the credit goes to Judy, she does this out of the kindness of her heart,” Mary Baker, a resident of the Lettered Streets who started helping with the garden two weeks ago. “I love pulling the weeds and seeing the flowers have open space.”

23 years ago, Buchanan and five other people came together to discuss ideas of making a park in this free space, which used to consist of land with two trees sitting atop.

They proposed the idea to the city and were rejected, but finally received $10,000 to start the park.

Buchanan remembers in 1993 when she first put up a quarter inch plywood sign in the park, which read, “Watch for park coming soon.”

In 1996, Buchanan also helped build the gazebo in the middle of the garden, which was painted a colorful blue, yellow and red color four years ago as one student’s senior project.

Today there are bricks surrounding the Gazebo with names of donors, volunteers and important community members. These bricks were sold to people to write a person’s name down in efforts to raise money for the garden.

Bricks with for non-business owners were sold for $35 and bricks for business-owners were sold for $50, bringing in a total of $2000 to help fund the garden.

To help keep up the garden; Buchanan receives help from the municipal court community service program.

“For help, I get kids who are doing community service through the municipal court because it is kind of the sporadic workforce, so I did try to reach out to my neighborhood for help,” said Buchanan.

Buchanan also said that the kids doing community service seem to love it out here because its not just busy work or scrubbing tiles.

Buchanan remembers one time she had a group of 16 kids who got busted at a party and had to serve community service hours. These two guys dug out a couple huge rocks from about four-feet underground, which still sit in the flowerbed today.

Boy scouts and girl scouts have volunteered here as well. In the wintertime they would come pick up fallen leaves off the ground.

Buchanan has also had service-learning students from Whatcom Community College volunteered a few years back, but has not recently since the downsizing project.

The Parks Department wanted to simplify the park because the new parks director wanted it all neat and tidy.

A couple years ago Buchanan had a five yards of non-organic soil brought in which caused a bunch of weeds to sprout. The large amount of growing unstoppable weeds, which has was never a problem before, has become an ongoing issue since then. This problem caused the garden was then downsized last year to make the garden simpler.

“It’s too bad that it was a forced downsize so quick,” said Buchanan. “All gardener’s agree that it takes about three years to do so.”

Gossage Garden is named after Glen Gossage, a well-known and active community man who lived in the Lettered Streets, and owned a pharmacy on C Street.

The community voted unanimously to name the park after Mr. Gossage.

 “I think whatever Judy does is beautiful, I see her out there on blazing hot days and I think it brings the neighborhood together, and its really nice so that’s why we contribute,” said Aileen Cleary, who contributes a donation to Gossage Garden every year. “It’s a cut stone for the neighborhood, and it makes me happy to look at.”