For decades the gardens at Phelps Grove Park were beautiful. Over the years, though, a disease killed the roses at the south end of the garden area, and weeds overwhelmed the perennial gardens on the north.
This year, though, using money received at the 2023 Community Partnership of the Ozarks NOVA banquet, the Phelps Neighborhood Association is partnering with the Springfield-Greene County Park Board and the Missouri State University Horticulture Club to restore the gardens to their former beauty.
The Parks Department is removing the weeds where the roses used to grow, installing a sprinkler system, and planning a color-coordinated garden for planting when the soil is ready.
The MSU Horticulture Club removed all that was growing in the center section of the garden area, where the raised beds and path to the rose garden were built. They saved flowers that had been growing there, but planted native perennials to host and feed the pollinators.
The Phelps Neighborhood Association is taking out the Bermuda grass and five-feet-tall plants that had overtaken the remaining seven gardens on the north side of the garden. Members of the association and others who have joined us saved and are replanting some of the perennials that had been put in those beds by gardeners in years past, and they are adding other pollinator-friendly native perennials.
This is a work in process, and the garden restoration will likely not be completed until next spring, but we invite you to come by and enjoy the gardens as they are worked on and restored.
