Regarding The Times article Sunday, “Enota move grows concern over garden’s placement:” With the full approval of the Gainesville Board of Education, an extensive, beautiful and educational garden has been built over the last eight years at Enota school. Now plans presented by the school administration propose the complete destruction of this garden.

Nevertheless, school officials insist that the garden will be preserved because the plans also include space for plants, according to the headline. With any regard to the meaning of words, this cannot be called preservation. If you are going to preserve something, you do not start out by destroying it completely, then substitute something new.

Providing space for plants is not the same as preserving the garden, particularly since no money has been set aside for actually planting plants in that space, or for performing all the other countless tasks necessary to create a new garden on the same scale and with the same quality of the garden now in existence.

Superintendent Wanda Creel was quoted in The Times on March 27 stating the school has some beautiful pictures of the garden that will be featured in the new building. Many friends of Enota believe that experiencing the real garden in three dimensions and hearing the birds call to each other in the fresh air is superior to looking at pictures hanging on a wall of a garden that used to exist on the site.

This garden is actually already here and has been maturing for eight years. It has been completely paid for, using no funds from the school system whatsoever. And it has a loyal following of friends dedicated to its upkeep. Substituting a space for plants with no viable garden plans or resources cannot reasonably be termed preservation.

I encourage the public to visit the garden now to fully appreciate its beauty and its value as an outdoor teaching and learning opportunity. (Visits should be on the weekend or after school hours to avoid disrupting classes or testing.)

Carolyn Mahar
Gainesville