Elder & Sage Community Gardens

A tenacious group of wayside gardeners in Asheville, North Carolina, became the official stakeholders in a blazing hot gravel lot on June 1, 2017. We began as a diverse gathering of neighbors and friends guided by an urgency to reclaim and repurpose a vacant city lot in our downtown neighborhood. Our vision was to transform the gravel-laden ground into a welcoming community garden providing habitat for trees, plants, birds, and beneficial insects, affirming their right to continued existence in our densely developing urban environment. This story is a people's history, one that needs telling. It is a tribute to the people who showed up, the plants that persisted, the trees that pushed up through the gravel. It is a way to share some of the stories that unfolded on our way from gravel to green as we reclaimed space for the precious diversity of the natural world.

Clare Hanrahan is a writer, activist and gardener. She has lived in the Asheville area since 1989 and downtown Asheville since 2011. She is committed to the work of global justice, peace, and protection of the Earth and reports on demonstrations and marches posting online as Asheville on the Ground.