At this time of year, visitors entering the main gates to the Maimon Memorial Garden at Cox Arboretum cross under a wooden pergola wrapped in vibrant, purple, passion flowers.
The garden circles around a brick analemmatic sundial that allows people to tell time with their shadows.
A gravel pathway branches out through low-laying bushes that fill the air with the rich scent of basil and floral varieties. Tendrils of passion fruit dangle from the plant’s vines.
Of all the edible plants inside the garden, Todd Strong, who serves as the horticulturist at Cox Arboretum, said his favorite is the passionflower.
“It is a native perennial fruit to this area," he said. "The vegetable garden is where my passion is. That's where we're actually producing food.”
The rest of the garden teems with pollinators that buzz between blooming flowers and branches of a variety of other edible plants such as Malabar spinach, heatless habanero and perennials like berries or pears and apples.
It's a bountiful harvest that makes a big impact on local sustainability, Strong said.
Cox Arboretum in Dayton has been home to the Maimon Memorial Garden since 2008. Operations at the garden were paused during the pandemic, but this year it has returned to nearly full scale.
Now, almost an acre of the FiveRivers MetroPark on Springboro Pike is filled with an assortment of edible plants, fruits and veggies that also add beauty to the landscape.
In recent years, the Maimon Memorial Garden has provided hundreds of pounds of food to local food assistance programs, like The Foodbank, Inc., and Miami Valley Meals. The garden also provides educational opportunities for students and visitors.
But maintaining such a massive edible garden is no small feat.
Funding and costs
Joe Morrison, MetroPark's regional park manager, said he created a spreadsheet in 2023 to keep track of staff and volunteer hours as well as the costs of all materials and maintenance for Cox Arboretum.
According to that data, it cost $70,578 per year on average to operate the park in the last two years. With annual visitation numbers surpassing 210,000 in 2024, covering those expenses is vital to maintaining the MetroPark for future visitors.
Strong said, at this time, they only have three full-time employees, one part-timer and a couple of seasonal staff to do this work.
"We're doing harvesting every week, we're weeding," he said. "I've got to have staff in here watering, so there's that cost there."
Funding for the edible landscape garden and Cox Arboretum as a whole comes from the passage of levies and the James M. Cox, Jr. Arboretum Foundation, which was "
formed by local philanthropists and volunteers [and] has served as the financial and visionary engine behind Cox Arboretum MetroPark" since its establishment in 1963, said Alexis Larsen, the chief of philanthropy for Five Rivers.
Larsen said the foundation's support has continued to make major assets of the park possible, such as the Maimon Memorial Garden.
In the last few years, the foundation's funding assistance has helped the garden replace its entrance pergola, update staining of the pavilion, add bird netting to discourage nesting and maintain its center, paved pathway.
Community donors such as the Maimon family are also a major part of the financial contribution that Five Rivers relies on to operate. The Maimons' continued support and donations are what prompted the new name of the edible landscape garden.
"We also do wedding rentals in here," said Strong. "So some of that money is going to the foundation, which is then going back into doing things here in the garden."
Volunteer work: 'It's education and it's community'
Five Rivers MetroParks also relies on community support to maintain the garden. That includes local schools, businesses and a dedicated five-person team of volunteers called the Garden Ambassadors.
“If it's watering, if it is weeding, if it's planting, those types of things, they help sustain and make this garden thrive throughout the year," said Allison Zimmerman, a volunteer coordinator with MetroParks.
Zimmerman said the garden underwent a hiatus during the pandemic to protect its older volunteers but it is once again thriving.
“I feel like now we're probably back in a better place. We have garden volunteers that regularly come out during the weekdays, we have our gardening ambassadors that come back out a couple of times throughout the day. We're always looking for more volunteers though," she said.
A group of students from Miamisburg High School visit the park every Monday. They work together to plant, harvest and tend to the public space. That includes the “postage stamp garden,” which is like a standard vegetable garden.
"They planted a lot of that. They've helped us mulch around the park. They're helping with harvest," said Strong. "So it's nice to have that community engagement. This garden, to me, it's education and it's community."
Katie Grant said she has been involved with this program for 13 years and has seen many benefits for the kids. She's an Intervention Specialist who works with the student volunteers.
“One, it's a personal skill that you can use at your own home. You can have your own garden, but they think this will give them a better understanding of the entire food supply chain of how to make sure that they're taking care of things and looking for things that are safe and just general employment skills,” she said.
Feeding the community
Thanks to a partnership between MetroParks, The Foodbank, Inc. and Miami Valley Meals, the edible provisions the high school students cultivate are destined to feed thousands of people in Montgomery, Greene and Preble Counties.
The Maimon Memorial Garden has donated over 900 pounds of fresh produce to the two local nonprofits in the past year.
Lee Lauren Truesdale, chief development officer for The Foodbank, said 4.7 million of the 17 million pounds of food they distribute each year is fresh produce.
“So having locally sourced fresh produce coming from a variety of sources really helps us distribute new and different items," she said. "And also, of course, it helps to make sure that the fresh produce is as fresh as possible when it's going into the hands of those in our community.”
Truesdale said The Foodbank is always looking for what they call “culturally appropriate” food to offer all of its guests a taste of home.
“Food is such a connector and so this also helps fill that void to make sure ... we have a wide variety of items available for individuals,” she said.
According to Strong, this partnership is a major part of the MetroParks' dedication to community and sustainability. Another part of that sustainability work includes finding natural ways to prevent pests and maximize crop production in small spaces.
“I had a seasonal employee that was here earlier this year. She tracked the populations of ladybugs and so we actually had that data where you can look and see when that population peaks," he said. "Well, if we can use that data and plant in accordance with when that population booms, those ladybugs are excellent pest control.”
Strong and Zimmerman said as the garden grows, they hope more volunteers will be encouraged to help out and continue to serve the community by providing fresh, locally grown foods.
"We all have that ability to help out our community, whether that's our neighbors, in this instance, it's going to The Foodbank, it's Miami Valley Meals," said Strong. "You have the ability to help community through donation, through time. And I think it doesn't matter how small of a gesture it is."
