Community Garden Awards

Two Coves Community Garden in Queens, NY wins NATURE HILLS NURSERY GREEN AMERICA AWARD

Three community gardening projects from across the United States have been honored with 2009 Nature Hills Nursery Green America Awards. Honored with the Grand Prize Award of $2,500 in plants was Bridging The Gap, a nonprofit environmental organization in the Kansas City area that is beautifying a vacant lot in the Ivanhoe Neighborhood. The lot has already been cleared of litter and debris, and volunteers are ready to begin creating the garden which will serve as a green space for the neighborhood complete with play areas for children and rest areas for adults.

Chosen for the First Place Award of $1,500 in plants was Two Coves Community Garden in Astoria (Queens), New York. Two Coves Community Garden is a newly established oasis in western Queens that provides fresh produce to residents of a neighborhood that has been described as “a food desert.” Honored with the Second Place Award of $1,000 in plants was Homewood Heights Community Garden in Austin, Texas. Homewood Heights is a one-year-old community garden that has sprouted from a reclaimed urban lot that was used for many years as a dump for construction debris.

Winners of the 2009 Nature Hills Nursery Green America Awards were chosen from over 200 applications submitted by community groups, nonprofit organizations, and gardening programs from across the USA. Nature Hills Nursery, an Omaha-based website-only retailer that sells trees, shrubs, perennials and other plants, created the Nature Hills Nursery Green America Awards as a way to give back to the communities and people who have contributed to the success of the company. For more information, visit www.naturehills.com.