When submitting a Wayspot Appeal, make sure to include as much of the following information as possible:
Wayspot Title: Gather & Grow Community Garden
Location (lat/lon): 49.287006, -123.005315
City: Burnaby
Country: Canada
Screenshot of the Rejection Email: The wayspot was approved and then I got an email saying “The aforemention Wayspot nomination does not meet our eligibility criteria as the garden does not exist.”
Additional Information (if any): The garden has been here since I moved to the area >10 years ago. The city comes a tends to the garden and waters it, and there is landscaping edge trim (bottom right corner of 3rd photo). I have included photos of the city gardeners at the garden recently with their city truck in the picture.
That seems to be just a small landscaped area. It’s not what is usually called a community garden. A community garden is usually an area for gardening where the community gathers or where individuals from the community come together to garden. More like this:
I agree that this is what is normally a community garden, but the garden in question is officially named “Community Garden” on the sign. I love this nomination, and think the name is fine in this case.
It does look like a place the community is invited to come together - “Gather” is in the name. Unless there is something I am not seeing behind this situation, I think this would be an excellent, recognizable place for a Wayspot.
I guess to me it is no different from all the little landscaped areas in front of neighborhood signs or along walkways in business parks.
The space is a thin strip of land, not appropriate for exploring, not set up for exercise, and this little beautification patch is lovely, but not a place where people would come to socialize. It’s just a little landscaping. I see that it says gather, but where really? And if the city is the one maintaining it with the annuals they planted is it really a place for people are supposed to come and do anything
No, and certainly we can disagree. I mentioned it because the OP said that the rejection stated that the garden wasn’t there. So, if we use the typical definition of community garden, which is what we would normally see as a submission, I can understand why the reviewer said the garden isn’t there. Because there isn’t what is typically considered a community garden there. What is there is more consistent with a small landscape flower bed.
If the OP were to want to resubmit this, my recommendation would be to not focus on the “community garden“ aspect of it, but rather why this flower garden is a place together and socialize.
Thanks for everyone’s interest and comments on my request. Though it may not be as fancy as the community garden photo shared by the group, it still is a community garden, as gardens don’t need to be vegetables, these feature lovely roses and other curated flowers.
People do socialize here, the area is a stopping point along the trail, where people literally “stop to smell the roses” as the saying goes. Someone recently left a felt heart with a note pocket containing a lovely quote in it. Other times I see the people living near by bring watering cans to do extra watering during the heat domes we have had to suppliment what the city does for watering. I have seen people put down their yoga mats in front of the garden on the grass and exercise there. People walking along the trail to specifically go to that part of the park acknowledges that the garden is more meaningful then a little landscaping.
Neighbours coming together to support a garden and specifically enjoy that garden space is socializing and exercising.
Thanks again for the great discussion and letting me explain a little more about what makes this place special to our community
