Background

Background

Local residents of Monmouth County suffer from a lack a proper education concerning gardening and from a lack of proper nutrition; these two problems go hand-in-hand. Today, many people do not understand the importance of gardening and how gardening impacts their lives daily. By installing an Interactive Children’s Garden in Deep Cut Gardens, gardening education and experience becomes more readily available for Monmouth County locals and visitors. The Interactive Garden serves as a chance for the visitors and locals to learn, garden, and make an impact. Anyone who gardens in the Interactive Garden plays a role in helping mollify hunger because all crops grown in the garden get donated to local food pantries. The Interactive Children’s Garden tackles two problems: education and hunger

As of 2012, 1,151,890 people lived in food insecure households in New Jersey alone and 46.7 million people experienced poverty in the U.S. The increase in the cost of living causes families to struggle to afford basic necessities. Therefore, families have no choice, but to cut back on spending money for healthy food. In Monmouth County, it costs $74,287 for a family of two adults and two school aged children per year. As the price of living becomes higher and higher, purchasing healthy foods become more and more difficult for families to attain. Also, in Monmouth County, nearly half of the households with children experience hunger during the course of a year and one in ten people receive an emergency food package from their local food bank. On average, 30,000 people visit Deep Cut Gardens annually; considering this number stays the same, that means at least 30,000 people have the opportunity to further educate themselves and play a small role in conquering hunger. The garden has a triumphant cause and beautiful sereny on the grounds of Deep Cut Gardens in Middletown, New Jersey provides an ideal location for an interactive garden. This proposed garden serves not only as an educational tool to inform visitors about vegetation during all four seasons, but also as a means to give back and improve the local community.

The local community will reap the direct benefits of the garden, but visitors from around the world take and apply the information about gardening and local crops they gathered from the Interactive Children’s Garden. The Interactive Children’s Garden presents information in a way that allows visitors of all ages to learn about the plants and crops in the garden. The information, presented in the form of signs, provides as little text as possible and as much imagery as possible to drive a point home. Visitors of all ages will understand and absorb the information about a plant’s life, a plant’s health, and planting in general. Never seen before in Monmouth County, the Interactive Children’s Garden provides the opportunity to educate oneself and have fun planting. Visitors will enjoy the planting as they make new friends, create stronger bonds, and dedicate their efforts to such a worthy cause (hunger).

The Interactive Children’s Garden focuses on a natural mood and theme because of the location and purpose. Therefore, the different aspects should follow a color scheme that mimics the surrounding shrubbery, which includes earthy hues like green and brown. Although the signage will give off an informative and educational aura, the general theme of signage coincides with the “natural” mood. The mood resembles that of a park or other outdoor gathering place in the design and orientation. This makes the users feel that the garden belongs in its set location and does not look out of place.  Additionally, the garden must appeal to the users, which includes children. The specifications of the components must coincide with the needs and abilities of the children.

Many interactive children’s gardens exist throughout the country. One particularly famous garden, the Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden in Dallas, exists on a much larger scale than the Interactive Children’s Garden for Deep Cut Gardens. On a more local scale, the Barlow’s Children Garden in Brielle, NJ provides a place where children learn and enjoy the touch and smell of plants. The Barlow’s Children Garden serves as a prime example of the intended design for the Interactive Children’s Garden in Deep Cut Gardens. Barlow’s Children Garden, a small garden, features mossy pathways, pinwheels, eco-friendly huts, birdhouses, and pavements for chalk. Some interactive children’s gardens have themes such as dinosaur themed or insect themed. The gardens all include objects bigger than the “average” and “expected” size of that particular object. All of the gardens consists of large objects and figures for the children to climb on.

Hence, the Interactive Children’s Garden can help to fight against the problems of hunger and lack of proper education about multiple plants and crops. As society grows, living costs become more and more expensive, and as a means to live comfortably, people do not spend as much money on healthy food. The Children’s Garden could help provide healthy, available food on a local level to all food insecure individuals in Monmouth County. The Garden could educate visitors on how to properly care for certain plants during different seasons. The Interactive Children’s Garden could provide for those struggling and educate visitors in ways new to Deep Cut Gardens.