Courtyard complete ... for now

Now that the courtyard at St. Peter's is looking better than it has in years, the organizers of the area's latest revitalization project decided to ask the next generation for some ideas on what else we could do with the space, and the results are bloomin' beautiful.

Martin and Margaret Cull spearheaded the effort to cover the courtyard's flowerbeds with decorative patio stone, using a nifty diagram of the space to cultivate interest, enthusiasm and generosity (with the help of the Sunday School children). The goal was reached and the stone is in place, so Martin and Margaret invited the children to fill up the rest of the diagram with flowers and butterflies on July 14, and wow, did they come through!

"They did an amazing job, and I think it should be shown to the congregation during the children’s talk," says Margaret.

And so it shall be ... on July 21. In the meantime, the newly finished masterpiece hangs on a bulletin board in Cormack Hall.

How it all began

At the start of the spring, the flowerbeds were overgrown with weeds and grass, so Margaret and Martin – who have a particular passion for the courtyard – decided to take action. Martin hand dug the beds while Margaret pulled out the weeds, and after many hours of hard work, the flowerbeds were weed free!

"It looked nice for about two weeks before new weeds started to grow," Margaret recalls with a chuckle.

A more permanent solution was needed: they decided to install landscape fabric and decorative gravel – similar to what Assistant Incumbent's Warden Arnold Williams put in the front flowerbed in a previous gardening season. To fund the project, they took a page out of a familiar playbook: they created a diagram of the space, divided the flowerbed into sections and invited parishioners to "buy" a section by donating the cost of the gravel for that section – $25 for large spots and $5 for smaller ones. Best of all, when you bought a section, you got to colour it in on the diagram! (They used a similar approach to fundraising in years past, when they spearheaded the effort to build the fence that separates the courtyard from Elbow Drive.)

The fundraising and section-colouring got off to a rock-solid start in late June, and by early July the $700 goal had been exceeded! Volunteers got to work, and the courtyard's decorative plants and flowers are surrounded by alabaster-coloured stone that highlights their beauty, rather than weedy soil that detracts from it. What a blessing!

"It was a fun project," says Margaret. "Peter Leigh, Arnold Williams, Hal Anderson, Richard Cunnington and Gary Herle were a great help in getting our courtyard to how it looks now, so a big thank-you to all of them."

The Culls have dreams and ideas of what the courtyard will look like one day – a lush, green lawn, a barbecue/entertainment area, and an assortment of patio furniture that awaits deployment – to name a few. And now, thanks to the children, they have some new ideas, too!