The Burnside Sanctuary is Joy Grow’s first community greenspace project. Started in fall 2023, it’s a small park available for community use with many fruit plants, seating, shared vegetable garden space, native pollinator plantings and a beautiful chestnut tree – watch out for the spike balls!
We hope to continue facilitating this space as a community hub and vibrant ecosystem as its diverse orchard matures. Its fruit plants include: muscadine grapes, paw paws, Aronia, Goumi, raspberries, pear, persimmon, fig, elderberry, fuzzy and hardy kiwi vines, apple trees. These fruit plants have mostly been sourced from the wonderful people at Edible Landscaping in Central VA.
Once farm land, the property’s 1920’s farm house still stands. David Wallace, the properties current owner, planted the row of red Maples when he moved in in the early 80’s. The lot was sunbaked crab grass for many years, it was a volleyball court and had a smaller vegetable garden.
To start the site’s restoration, in fall 2023, we connected with local landscapers to drop off the leaves neighbors had paid them to remove. These leaves were a great resource! We received giant mountains of leaves which we then spread across the whole lot. This spongy, 2ft thick pile of leaves transformed the site, they provide water retention and yield nutrients as they decompose.
We have held a handful of community events in this space and look forward to more in the future. We plan to develop this little nature sanctuary to be a place to experience natures ecosystems and abundance.
