NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — It has been a summer full of heat advisories and dangerous temperatures.
Despite Arkansas’s sweltering summer, the heat hasn’t been able to stop workers and volunteers at North Little Rock’s Dark Hollow Community Garden located at the corner of Curtis Sykes Drive and Walnut Street.
According to Belinda Burney with the Dark Hollow Community Development Corporation, about three months ago, the garden was overgrown with weeds.
That’s when she and others decided to take action, by cleaning up and beautifying the garden.
They were finally able to reopen it in June.
"All the beds, like the color, the paint, the arts, everything else like that's out here. I mean, it's kind of gone from night to day,” said Jeff Titus, a garden technician with the City of North Little Rock.
The garden certainly looks better now, as Burney and the others set out to decorate the garden and make it a pretty spot to spend a day.
There are colorful tires peppered throughout the garden, some sporting the faces of animals, and a miniature train created by cinder blocks in reference to the Union Pacific crossing that is just a half-mile south.
“We've used tires as planters,” Burney said. “As a matter of fact, we recycle a lot of things to go into the garden to help make it lively, where people want to notice it and come out and be a part of it.”
Titus’s help has been hugely important to the group’s efforts as well. He's implemented a few different techniques to help the garden reach its full potential but he singled out one that he said has been hugely significant.
"The automated irrigation that we have,” Titus said. “So that way you don't have to worry about any kind of watering. You don't have to come out here at any particular point in the day or in the evening. It’s all automated in the morning, it'll come back on at night."
While the garden certainly looks great— it’s for much more than just looks.
Anyone can come and harvest from the garden, which Titus said is an important service for the Dark Hollow neighborhood and surrounding areas.
"At this garden in particular,” Titus said. “At Dark Hollow, this is really important because food insecurity is a huge issue all over the state, especially here in North Little Rock."
Titus also added that they’ll always take help from volunteers.
In fact, the garden even has a partnership with the North Little Rock School District to help high schoolers reach their required 75 hours of community service before graduation.
“We've had some students come out and sign up,” Burney said. “And it's very easy if they want to clean, pull weeds, do decorations, water, harvest, or whatever- they get community service hours for that.”
As for what’s next for the garden, Burney said she and Titus have plans to plant apple, pear, and peach trees, but beyond that, she’s not too sure.
“We don't really have a future plan for the garden,” Burney said. “We just come up with ideas and say, ‘Hey, that'll look good in the garden,’ and we do things like that.”