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magazine / mj07

May/June 2007 issue


MOSAIC
Boulevards in bloom
PHOTO: ROBERT TINKER

Boulevards in bloom
Excerpt by Sheri Gagnon

When Carrie Yudai tore up a patch of lawn in front of her Winnipeg house 15 years ago and replaced it with 14 varieties of peony and assorted wildflowers, she wasn't trying to start a beautification trend. The 65-year-old retired emergency room nurse and resident of Ethelbert Street in the south-end Wolseley neighbourhood just wanted a bigger garden.

"I ran out of grass," she says, "so I went to the boulevard." Her neighbours in what is known as the city's "granola belt" liked the idea and followed suit, eventually extending their gardens to cover almost every boulevard on the street.

At around the same time, Sally Papso, a 64-year-old retired juvenile corrections worker, was engaging in a little guerrilla gardening of her own on nearby Arlington Street. Responding to a municipal bylaw in 1992 that required residents to maintain the city-owned boulevards, Papso planted flowers next to the bus stop in front of her house, painted the bus stop red and added receptacles for garbage and cigarette butts, and a bench built from old railway ties.

When her "curbside creativity" won the attention of local media, Papso thought she might be reprimanded for defacing city property. But, she recalls, Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray came by years later "and he said, ‘If anyone gives you any hassle at all, you let me know.'"



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