Underutilized acres of lawn near Indian Trail library to become new conservation, learning garden for patrons

It was all Jenna Sutton could do to round up 3-year-old Henry as he raced through the new meadow garden at the Spokane Public Library’s Indian Trail branch on a recent – and hot – afternoon. Mom and son had visited the library and were off to other errands but not without a detour through the garden first.

This response was just what community educator Juan Juan Moses was hoping for when she came up with the idea to convert an underused acre of lawn on the south side of the library to something more productive and far more interesting.

On Saturday, Sept. 21, after much planning and partnership development, Moses and the library system will formally dedicate the new conservation and learning garden and welcome both library and critter patrons to the new space.

“Our winged patrons are just as important to our library as our human ones,” Moses said.

The family-friendly event begins at 11 a.m. and will feature a welcoming address by Mayor Lisa Brown, followed by a Suzie Tree dedication of mountain ash trees. This dedication will be accompanied by a native cleansing and blessing ceremony and honor song by Levi Horn, a member of Northern Cheyenne Tribe, and his daughter Elizabeth.

The Spokane Parks Department will host a tree planting demonstration and a tree raffle.

The program will end with a family nature hunt in the garden.

Local conservation organizations will have information booths to help attendees connect with our local environment including Wings Rising, an organization dedicated to supporting monarch butterflies, WSU Spokane County Master Gardeners, the Building a Memory Garden organization, the Inland Northwest Land Conservancy, the Spokane Water Department’s Water Wise Program and other groups.

The Lilac City Homeschool Band will provide music.

“This garden is a sanctuary where nature and community converge,” Moses said. “We’ve meticulously curated native berry-bearing trees and shrubs in the bird garden offering sustenance and shelter for birds while providing education on edible and medicinal resources for visitors.”

The garden will feature a meadow designed to provide flowers and seeds for bees and birds during the summer, as well as food-bearing trees, like mountain ash for winter food and shelter. The meadow will be left standing in all its messy wildness through the winter to provide seeds and hiding spaces for critters of all kinds.

“That’s the way nature works,” Moses said.

Even though the pollinator meadow was only planted in mid-May, it is filled with more than 20 varieties of wildflowers, some native, some not, that will sustain insects throughout the growing season.

“This meadow is a dynamic habitat designed to support our vital pollinators year-round,” Moses said.

Bees, insects and butterflies dancing over the flowers proved it didn’t take long for them to find the new food source.

As a community of learning, Spokane Public Library will provide specialty learning events in the garden and meadow.

“Similar to how we create garden and cooking events using the Discovery Garden at Shadle Park Library, we also plan to create unique events focused on what makes this garden and meadow so special,” Moses said. “Who knows, perhaps beehive, birdwatching and beekeeping classes are in the future!”