A "Before" Picture of a Section of the Garden
The rosebushes were being choked by weeds and dead plants. The section of the garden pictured here was worse than the average bed, but other similar areas were not uncommon.
Weeding!
Volunteers uprooted weeds from the ground around the rosebushes and gathered them in buckets.
Progress
A bucket of uprooted weeds stands next to a rosebush and the newly cleared ground around it.
Even More Cleanup...
Eventually we graduated from buckets to wheelbarrows. This picture shows a wheelbarrow less than half full with dead overgrowth, but we filled and emptied several overflowing wheelbarrows piled high with mountains of weeds and dead growth. Along the sides of the path, you can see the progress made from the first picture! Some dead weeds still carpet the ground, but they are far more cleared up than in the first picture.
Done For Today
After three hours of work, we cleared a significant amount of weeds and dead growth. The garden is big and some weeds are quite firmly lodged in the soil, though, so there is always more work to be done. We encourage you to volunteer at your local community gardens! The experience was calming, peaceful, fun, and gratifying! If you live near San Jose in the California Bay Area, grab a couple friends and volunteer at the San Jose Rose Heritage Garden. They are open to volunteers every Saturday morning.