Willow garden helps Katrina July 27, 2007

Frontiersman

WILLOW - In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the necessity of reconstruction triage meant a grim future for the New Orleans Botanical Gardens as efforts focused on more critical city systems like power and sewers.

After $2 million in damages from the storm, the gardens were forced to lay off 200 of its 220 staff members. Offices were destroyed, vehicles wrecked and trees uprooted. Even a year after the disaster, donations to the garden had to be sent to an address outside the city because there was no mail service in that area.

This weekend that continuing reconstruction will get a boost from the efforts of Coyote Gardens in Willow. Coyote Gardens has been featured in magazines including Horticulture Magazine, Sunset, Country Gardens, Gardens Illustrated, Better Homes and Gardens and the Home and Garden TV channel, and is considered among the state's premier horticultural attractions. The famed garden will open to the public Saturday for a day of tours, and all proceeds will go to help restore the New Orleans gardens.

&#8220This weekend is really the peak,” Coyote Gardens owner Les Brake said, with flowers in full bloom. Brake has also made new improvements to the garden, including a stone path made from a full ton of mossy rocks carried down from Hatcher Pass.

The idea occurred to Brake when he read an article about the personal efforts of gardening luminary Marco Polo Stefano to repair the New Orleans Botanical Gardens.

&#8220One of the gods of the garden world was down in the muck,” Brake said. &#8220It really touched me to see someone of that stature down in the dirt.”

Brake said that while he had gardened for 23 years, in all the chaos it never occurred to him to wonder at the gardens' fate. Inspired by Stefano's example, Brake decided to use Coyote Gardens to help New Orleans.

The Saturday event is more than one garden helping another, Brake said. As city parks were cleaned up and restored after the hurricane, people were inspired to rebuild their neighborhoods instead of cutting their losses and moving on, said Brake, who reads New Orleans newspapers online.

&#8220They say the garden is an oasis in the midst of the destruction,” Brake said. &#8220I'm happy to see it be part of the reconstruction, knowing how important it is for a wounded city to have a beautiful garden to go to and seek solace.”

For Brake, the national outpouring of concern for the Katrina victims also offered America a chance for redemption after failing to realize its promises to the South during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War.

&#8220As a former Southerner myself, I've never felt the South was properly reconstructed. Katrina blew the lid off of 140 years of unfinished business. It could constitute a turning point in the country's history,” Brake said, and be remembered as the point at which the nation turned its attention back to the South and finished the work of rebuilding.

Already Alaska gardeners have donated $5,000 to New Orleans Botanical Gardens, Brake said. Besides the Willow Garden Club, a number of other groups have contributed, including the Wildflower Garden Club of Anchorage, Homer Garden Club, North Root Garden Club of Big Lake and the Alaska Rock Garden Society.

Genevieve Trimble, president of the New Orleans Botanical Garden Foundation, said she couldn't express how appreciative her foundation was of Alaskans' help.

&#8220It was amazing and so heartwarming to see the response from all over the nation,” she said. &#8220Getting to know Les Brake is one of the wonders of the experience we've had. It shows that not everything is bad when you get blown away.”

Though the hurricane had completely destroyed the gardens, Trimble said the blank slate left has given staff the opportunity to put in drainage and other improvements.

&#8220As we're building New Orleans back it's a slow process, and painful in many ways. But in the end it will be much better than it ever was,” she said.

Years ago, Brake had witnessed firsthand the devastation of a previous hurricane while traveling in the region, and acknowledged that in the future, another hurricane could do similar damage to the city. That doesn't invalidate Alaskans' contributions, he said.

Brake quoted garden writer Felder Rushing's comparison of the situation to that of Sisyphus, a mythical figure condemned by the Greek god Zeus to eternally roll a stone up a hill only to have it roll back down again. French thinker Albert Camus interpreted the myth as a metaphor for the human condition - perpetual struggle without hope of success - and argued that if Sisyphus accepts there is nothing more to his life than struggle, then he can make peace with that life. Rushing claimed that such was the case with New Orleans reconstruction in the face of future storms, and Brake said that was a good way to look at it.

&#8220We're all pushing this rock,” he said, &#8220but it goes a little easier if we all push together.”

In the meantime, Brake said New Orleans will have its beautiful gardens restored to inspire its people, and America will find out just how generous it really is.

Coyote Garden in Willow will be open to the public Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The suggested donation for touring Coyote Garden is $5 per person. There will also be a good selection of plants for sale. For more information, contact Coyote Gardens at 495-6525.

Contact Frontiersman reporter Will Elliott at 352-2252 or will.elliott@frontiersman.com.