Garden Walk Logisitics

How to plan a successful garden walk. Its starts long before the event itself!

I. Multitude of participating gardens.

    A. Our walk in Chicago had 50+

    B. Participation is open to anyone.

    C. Vegetable gardens are great, people appreciate helpful advice in growing their own food

    D. Having each participating gardener write a short brief on their garden

    E. People love ponds too, finding out who has one

    F, 25 gardens to start? Can we get that many? Are there that many?

    G. Agreeing on a date for the garden. It's summer. People take vacations. Someone is going to miss the walk each year. There was no way around it in Chicago, every year someone was disappointed it was when they were out of town. There we had it anchored to the Village Festival so there was some consistency and no feelings got hurt because it was tied to the event. At a minimum all committee members with participating gardens had to be in town.

    H. What if I don't have a garden I want to show or live out of the area? That's ok, your skills are needed!

II. Recruitment

    A. Creating and distributing flyers to homes in the area

    B. Local media, newspaper, local businesses hanging flyers

    C. Taking photos of said gardens and posting on social media and this site

    D. Leaving notes at the doors of people who have great gardens and recruiting them directly 

III. Marketing Material

    A. Flyer for recruitment - Both written and graphically designed

    B. Flyer for promotion -  Both written and graphically designed

    C. Website/Blog development - I think the vanilla-ness of this blog cries for the help it so deserves

    D. Participating gardens map

    E. Bike the Garden Walk flyer. Those that are walking might want to drive to each section of the walk so we should also have a "Bike the Garden Walk" flyer or campaign

 

IV. Day of Walk

    A. Welcome booth to distribute maps/collect donations

    B. Balloons tied to mailboxes or fences or doors to participating homes (night before or early morning)

    C. Greeter Homes in each subdivision. These are the captains of those blocks, someone must be in their garden, ask what they have seen, how the experience is and what they have enjoyed. This will help us improve each year.

V. Setting up Non Profit.

    A. Setting up simple NPO for any donations and or potentially sponsors.

    B. There are essentially two businesses here on Scaggsville road and perhaps PepperJacks or the Car repair shop might have an interest in paying for the flyer. 

    C. This is only if we go the donation route and really whether or not we have enough participation to actually bring people out to visit the gardens. 

VI. Volunteering

    A. As we can see there are several opportunities here that address several skill sets

    B. Identifying your strengths and level of commitment you want and or can make to our success

VII. What's in it for the walkers?

    A. In Chicago, all of the neighborhoods were anchored to another event, usually a street fest that had live music and food. If anyone has any suggestions on this, that would be great. People would walk the gardens and then end up at the fest spending money at the local shops, and restaurants selling street food. This brought in a good mix of young and old walkers.

    B. What else could we do besides provide awesome gardens, our tips and winning personalities?

    C. I don't know.

    

Do consider which of these areas you think you could contribute your time and effort to and of course please add your thoughts and improvements to making this event something people will look forward to every year. 

I grilled hot dogs and gave away street tacos one year. Some people had margarita parties during the event and others children had lemonade stands. Mostly I found that people enjoyed walking through the gardens, asking questions and chit chatting over the course of the day. 

At night when it was done we had a party for the planning committee at a really cool wine bar. It was a nice way to celebrate what we had accomplished. People loved the walk in Chicago. I think what they loved the most was not the most spectacular gardens, but getting out in the fresh air, seeing the creativity and the diversity of gardens and sharing their love for the green with the participating gardeners.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?