Lansdowne Avenue School Garden opened as one of two experimental gardens in 1904 supported by the Philadelphia Board of Education and the Vacant Lots Cultivation Association of Philadelphia. Image from Helen C. Bennett's 1906 article "The School Garden: A New Method of Nature Study". Appleton's Booklover's Magazine

Lansdowne and Weccacoe School Gardens

According to the 1906 “Municipal School Gardens” report authored by the Superintendent of School Gardens, Helen C. Bennett, the first of the two gardens was located at 56^th Street and Lansdowne Avenue in West Philadelphia, that she describes as “… a semi-suburban neighborhood of middle-class Americans surrounded by trees and open ground.” The Vacant Lots Association provided the land, labor, and preparation of the beds. The Board of Education was responsible for everything else – including the provision of two garden teachers, Marion Sape and Josephine Reed. The school children served by the garden were students attending Heston Public School Numbers 1 and 2

In contrast, the second of the experimental gardens, the Weccacoe Garden, on Catherine below 5^th Street, she described as “a bare lot awaiting improvement as a city square” in the “heart of a crowded foreign quarter, and the only open space for blocks.” The garden teachers assigned were Irene Eldridge and Georgie Mendenhall.

Bennett followed up with an article published in the April 1905 issue of Appleton’s Magazine, titled “The School Garden: A New Method of Nature Study.” The article reported in some detail on the success of both gardens, but Weccacoe in particular.

 Weccacoe Garden, however, despite the good press did not make it into 1905. The City again approved a school gardens appropriation with the proviso excluding gardens at Weccacoe Square. The Philadelphia Inquirer report on the Philadelphia budget for 1905 reported an an appropriation of $10,000 for the improvement of Weccacoe Square – it may be that the 185 school garden plots would prove to be an inconvenience to City development activities.

 A substitute for Weccacoe was found before the 1905 spring school semester began. A large undeveloped lot was secured across from the Taggart School at Fifth and Porter. The Taggart garden held the place of the largest of the school gardens until 1915 when it lost its privately-owned lot to development.

Weccacoe School Garden opened as one of two experimental gardens in 1904 supported by the Philadelphia Board of Education. Image from Helen C. Bennett's 1906 article "The School Garden: A New Method of Nature Study". Appleton's Booklover's Magazine