A second chance to garden

While many seniors are forced to give up gardening as they grow older due to creaky joints or other health problems, members of the Eighth Ward, Salt Lake Liberty Stake, are going strong this season, thanks to a set of raised garden boxes on the roof of Wasatch Manor, a retirement community.

The garden, the idea of Relief Society President Phyllis Grangroth and brought into being by Bishop Edvin Remund, is an assortment of eight planting boxes, 4 feet by 8 feet, raised to waist-height so the gardeners don't have to bend down and those in wheelchairs can reach comfortably. He recruited some Scouts from his home ward to help build the boxes and built four by himself, and has continued to be a crucial part in making the garden a possibility, Grangroth said.

\"We had the idea, but we wouldn't have gotten anywhere without (the bishop),\" she said. The idea came from wanting to do something more worthwhile and fulfilling than sit around at home, she said. It seems to have worked; Remund said gardening this year has proved to be very therapeutic for the members of his ward.

\"It has been a good project for these people,\" he said. \"It gives them something to look forward to.\"

Of the eight boxes, four are arranged on the east side, the others on the west. Those on the east have been doing better, since the building helps shade the former from the harsh afternoon sun. Twenty-one people garden on the roof, members and non-LDS alike, and each plant their plot with whatever they want, including beans, tomatoes, squash, strawberries and various flowers.

\"You name it, it's been up there,\" Remund said.

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