>>So we are in Booker T. Washington Park, and this is a microclimate wetland.

We in the Albermarle Garden Club refer to it as the Bog Garden because it's just kind of a sweet, fun name, but it is really wet, fairly stagnant.

And so if you had to step in there right now, you would probably sink about four inches and your shoes would definitely be wet.

>>Ah, it is magical in here because of the dappled sunlight and the shade.

It's really kind of a little oasis here in Charlottesville.

>>Yeah, it's a nice little quiet corner.

And in my time working in this garden, we've seen more and more people use it, which is lovely.

The city has created some trails around and so it actually has gotten much more used.

>>So tell me a little bit about the plants that you have arranged in here.

>>Yeah, so we really focus on natives and I would say there was a great deal of invasive removal that happened before any of these plants really took hold.

But as we've spent years taking out invasives, we've had good luck with planting plants.

We have a fern that's called sensitive fern, turtlehead.

There's a New York ironweed.

This is quite a grove of ostrich fern and there's some Joe-Pye weed in the distance.

We've never planted Joe-Pye weed in my time here of 10 years, but I think it's clearly happy here and has self-seeded.

>>It's great for the butterflies too.

What is that lovely splash of color that's in the center there and along the edge?

>>Yeah, that is cardinal flower and that really is quite spectacular this time of year, I think.

>>Of all of these plants in here, what's your favorite?

>>Well, right now you have to love the cardinal flower, right?

My opinion changes every time I'm here, depending on what time of year it is.

I would say in the spring, we have beautiful ephemerals, we have tons of woodland geraniums and blue bells, and, you know, that whole hillside is just covered with blue bells, which is really spectacular.

But this time of year, it's hard to think that it's much better it's hard to think that it's much better it's hard to think that it's much better than this cardinal flower.

We have to pay a lot of attention to runoff.

As you can see, you know, this beech tree here has had some erosion and we've researched and decided that lady ferns, which is the ferns you see here, are really the best that we can find to match the soil water and they really hold the soil quite well.

>>It's beautiful.

That is a majestic tree.

Absolutely wonderful.

So how long did it take you to get this established here?

It seems like a lot of work.

>>You know, it has been a lot of work, and while I'm the one standing here, it has been a real community effort.

The Albemarle Garden Club hosts a work day a month.

We have probably anywhere from like eight to 12 people work and the city supplies us with a tarp and we put all of our debris, any invasives on the tarp and they come and take it away.

So it's taken us about 10 years to really get this going.

And I would say we now aren't spending as much time on invasives and we're able to spend more time helping the community find ways to be here, helping school kids come and support field trips here and do things like that, which is really sort of another fun thing.

>>So what was the most challenging invasive to remove from this area?

>>You know, I think some of the, like, Japanese grasses, They've been really hard.

It was actually beautiful.

It was this very chartreuse-y green, but it has the oddest root structure and it has been virtually impossible to get completely rid of.

We are winning the battle, I would say.

These sensitive ferns have really helped as they've developed.

You know, these were just little tiny plugs.

So, you know, it's an ongoing thing, but we don't wanna spray anything in here that's toxic.

So we do just pull the weeds when we see them and hope that when we plant the natives, they just are able to fight off some of the invasives and that seems to work.

English ivy is also a hard one here.

It just doesn't even seem to matter that it's really wet soil.

You would think they wouldn't like to have wet feet, but they don't seem to care.

And I would say we also, unfortunately, are fighting the fact that in this park in the '70s, I have been told that Parks and Rec planted 7 to 8,000 plugs of English ivy to try to keep erosion at bay.

So we now know no one would ever do that, but at the time, that seemed like a good idea.

>>This is a pollinator hotel.

that you guys have built?

This is a big hit with the kids that come through here.

They love this, you can even see now Theres some... >>Its being inspected by something, yes!

It is, it is!

Some things!

And this was a project that the Albemarle Garden Club took on about eight years ago, and we had a great metalsmith guy come and build this structure and it was really quite an effort to get it into the ground.

>>So this is so beautiful.

What are the ecological benefits of this garden area?

>>Well, I think primarily because it is a microclimate wetland, it serves the purpose of slowing the runoff from higher elevations down lower.

It captures the water, the water gets into the ground table and doesn't run out into the street.

It's housing and food and water for bugs and creatures alike, and that is a benefit.

And I would say the water gets cleaner because these plants are here.

It basically supports all these plants.

>>So you mentioned community in the garden.

It sounds like you have a lot of great things going on and events here.

How can other people get involved?

>>So I think this park gets used a great deal.

We have spent our efforts on a couple of things.

We wrote a grant and received a grant from the Garden Club of America to host a community day here, which we've done the last three Octobers.

And that has really been, it's been called Down by the Bog and it's really been a family day, family fun day, intended to bring people to this place and to educate them.

We have frogs and little kids count the number of frogs in the bog and we've got all sorts of sort of just nature play.

And it's done in partnership with about four or five other non-profits in town.

And we've had as many as 300 people show up.

People from the Garden Club bring flowers from their garden and the kids make little bouquets.

And it's been a fun event and a great way to get people to learn about what is a wetland, why it's important.

We also are lucky that this site is within walking distance of five different public schools and it's used often as a science field trip.

And we've hosted second graders here to talk about pollinators, which has been really fun.

We've hosted seventh graders here to talk about water and ecology and climate change.

And so it's always fun to have young people move through this space and the questions that they ask and the things they're interested in are always sort of humorous.

>>That is wonderful.

Thank you so much for having us today, and thank you for sharing this beautiful garden with me.

>>Oh, you're welcome.

Thanks for having me.