Imperial Towers Community Garden
Written by Alex Barnes and Cathy Chung
The Imperial Towers Community Garden is an example of what happens when a well built garden and passionate community members meet. They flourish! Tenants of this building approached UHC about transforming their rooftop into a garden, even though they didn't have much growing experience to begin with. The space quickly converted from a hot, gray, flat expanse of cement to a lush, green oasis bursting with colorful flowers and fresh vegetables. The dedicated tenants learned quickly, and have produced bumper crops every season since the garden's construction in 2019 (the gardeners took a break in 2020 due to COVID). We at UHC consider this garden a monumental success, having enriched the lives of residents at Imperial Towers and added just a little more green to this city, and could not have asked for more devoted gardeners to work with.
Here are photos from our October 2021 work session, during which we helped them put the boxes “to bed” as we get ready for winter. The high wind on this site is one of the reason that we do not wait for the plants to die back more prior to covering, as any exposed media will be blown away pronto!
This project had a long gestation stage: a spot within the condo complex was initially slated for a basketball court that was never built. After a while, a few residents of the Imperial Towers had thought to utilize the empty space as gardening space. Fast forward two decades (because life gets crazy sometimes), all the puzzle pieces fell into place and the Garden Commission was formed by a group of interested condo owners. Armed with renderings and enough interest to fund its vision, the Garden Commission presented its case to the Condo Board. Yet due to its location above the garage, once the Garden Commission obtained the preliminary approval, they had to source a light weight planting media as well as engage an engineer to verify that the garage structure is able to support the weight of the planter boxes. UHC helped the Garden Commission to identify the suitable media and planter. The garden finally became a reality in Spring of 2019 and that is when UHC held several work sessions to set up the boxes, provide training for the Commission members and work alongside with them during planting, maintaining crops of their choice, and then ultimately helping them to winterize the planter boxes as the growing season ends.
Here’s the Imperial Towers Garden Commission’s video submission for Chicago Chicago Excellence in Gardening Award, in which you can see the “before” and “after” shots of the space.
We also had a great opportunity to chat with the Commission’s Co-Chair, Vicky Rozich:
Q: What are some challenges or unexpected events that you encountered in your journey to bring this community garden to reality? I understand it took about 2 decades of planning and the weight issue of planting over a garage?
A: The idea was in Gene's head a few decades ago, but it wasn't practically put before our Board/ condo, to built until a year before it became reality. In 2018 we typed a proposal, took pictures, rendered a finished prototype version of what it would look like and it was presented to our condo board for consideration. It passed in idea/ concept, but they had to do the load study for the weight. In the meantime we put up a double herb wall by the grills for resident use and to get the idea of a garden group out there. Once the load study passed engineering, we put an actual plot in the lobby, along with a large picture of the finished version and began to promote the plots for individual use and to raise money for building them. 2018 was herb wall only, 2019 was our first gardening year, 2020 the deck was closed and we couldn't garden on the deck, and 2021 was our second full season. We have 54 gardners using 35 4 ft by 4 ft garden boxes (plots). We also had 3 benches donated for our sitting area, a deck box for our tools/ supplies, and 13 pots for planters in our sitting area.
Challenges were to get enough gardeners, train them as 50% had never really had a garden or farm before so they really required some guidance. We had training classes to share success tips and supportive community days to provide guidance.
Q: There has been a resurgence in home gardening in these past two years Covid, and many of the condo dwellers are trying to do the same thing as you did. Do you have any advice for someone who is looking to do the same in a condo setting?
Yes, find out where you want to do it on the property, and create a proposal to the condo board. Share the vision and the financials, how big, what will it look like? Is it a building amenity or a private garden for only individual gardeners (like ours) just using common space? Who is funding it? We are self-sustaining, the association does not provide money to the project, so gardeners have to, Which Board member will be the liaison for the project between management, Board and gardeners. Once it is pitched and accepted, get going, select a team and have a project manager to create a realistic timeline. Start early, sometimes it takes a while to pass and get going so start in January or February.
Q: After two growing seasons, and seeing a multitude of gardening styles by your fellow garden mates, are there any new things you are inspired to try (plants, recipes, planting methods, etc)?
Each garden and location of the building (condo or yard) will have its own microclimate. Near the lake where we are, it is very windy and arid, or future west and warmer earlier in the spring. How much sun, full, partial, dappled, or completely blocked part of the day? Where is the water source? Where I see cone flowers standing tall and beautiful in yards and parks across the city, they absolutely will not grow in 25 mile an hour cool northeast wind. We use row covers in the spring to combat cool temps and frost and wind. This has been very successful. Trellising is important. Early spring and cool weather vegetables along with root vegetables do really well, as do certain flowers. We watch each other's gardens and learn by example and by watching. Watering is key as since it is above ground it needs to be watered a bit more often. Many people like seeds, but have had success with seedlings in early June. Flowers do extremely well. Grasses, basil and herbs, marigolds, tomatoes, vegetables, wildflowers, even hollyhocks did great- along with a huge variety of annuals and perennials that did very well.
Q: As you are putting the gardens to "bed" for the season, what do you look forward to in the 2022 growing season?
Taking our success and continuing to build on it. Learn from each other and the timing and our experiences. Creating even more of the ownership of the space, and teamwork of all gardeners, helping with deck maintenance. We have a new Long range operational manual and dedicated storage space for our supplies, so the building is now completely supportive of our project. We hope to have more 'get togethers' post covid and help each even more- along with additional educational opportunities.
The Imperial Towers Community Garden is a success in its own right, not only providing a place to garden for the residents leasing a garden box, the area is open to all residents of the complex to enjoy, thus bringing people together within a large community (there are about 1,400 residents within the condo complex). Beyond the ongoing training for newer gardeners, the Garden Commission also started a “box sharing” program: pairing gardeners who couldn’t keep up with the daily maintenance with other gardeners who can, and thus ensuring the overall success and enjoyment.
Here is a radio show featuring the winners of the 2021 Chicago Excellence in Gardening Award Winners. The Co-chairs of the Imperial Towers Community Garden, Vicky and Gene, can be found discussion the garden around 6:25 and 50:00.
You can also visit the Imperial Towers Community Garden website for more information here.