Wheelchair Accessible Garden Grand Opening in Springfield

Tour and learn more about a new garden providing people of all abilities more access to gardening

Join Enos Park Neighborhood Gardens for the grand opening of its wheelchair-accessible garden on April 29 at 10 a.m.

In 2024, Enos Park Neighborhood Gardens partnered with Kumler Outreach Ministries and the United Methodist Foundation to receive a grant from Aetna for a wheelchair-accessible garden.

Learn more about Enos Park Community Gardens and celebrate the grand opening of this new garden specifically designed for wheelchair users!

Manager Carey Smith designed the garden with significant input from two local wheelchair users, Missy Norman and Katelyn Montgomery. The garden includes:

• A concrete pad with six self-watering raised beds that users can slide beneath instead of alongside for better access
• A 50-foot concrete sidewalk connecting the brick walkway to the concrete garden pad
• An easily accessible water spigot
• An easy-open side gate and a concrete ramp from the sidewalk to the concrete pad

The garden will also have a tool shed with ergonomic tools, a bench, a wheelchair-accessible picnic table and shade in the garden area. An arched trellis over the brick walkway will have displays for garden information and news.

You can rent raised beds for $10 per year. The rental fee includes access to tools, water, seeds, seedlings, and garden mentoring upon request.

If you are a wheelchair user or cannot use traditional raised beds, please get in touch with the garden manager at carey@enosparkgardens.org to get on a waiting list for a rental.