Go Play

Keep Newnan Beautiful Pollinator Garden
and Outdoor Classroom

COWETA GARDEN

Written by ROBIN STEWART
Photographs courtesy of Keep Newnan Beautiful/City of Newnan

Play in the dirt. Maybe touch a worm. Feel and hear the buzz of a bumblebee’s fast-beating wings. Make music with common household items. Observe a feathered friend up close. Behold a butterfly’s kaleidoscope of color.

Peer about, waiting for a flying fairy to appear. There’s the magic of a Disney flick, only this is much, much better: There’s sun on your face, wind in your hair and grass under your feet. Who wouldn’t want to be in this classroom?

This is the Keep Newnan Beautiful Pollinator Garden and Outdoor Classroom known as KNB Space, a very green result of the public-private partnership between the City of Newnan’s Keep Newnan Beautiful (KNB) and Niagara Cares, the charitable arm of local company Niagara Bottling. The half-acre space at 14 Carmichael Street is a unique play place designed to ignite the imaginations of young children and help spark an early interest in their environment.

Page Beckwith, KNB director, secured the grant from Niagara Cares that allowed KNB to create the outdoor imagination station for local children. Other supporters include Buck’s Tires, Crain Oil and Newnan Utilities.

In keeping with the reuse-repurpose-recycle triad, the outdoor classroom features as many recycled and natural materials as possible. Located behind the University of West Georgia’s Newnan campus, this once-vacant lot has been transformed.

The garden's Sensory Path welcomes visitors to explore walking with bare feet on various materials including river rock, gravel, grass, Legos, tile and more.

Beckwith is a former teacher and mother of three who considers this KNB space her fourth baby. What started in 2017 as a pollinator garden blossomed in 2019 to become an outdoor classroom. Geared toward children ages 10 and younger, the spot is designed to allow children creativity in their play.

“In this space, they find things to do in the environment so they can enjoy the outdoors,” says Beckwith.

A Sensory Path invites bare feet to safely explore walking on materials including rope, river rock, gravel, slate, grass, Legos, tile and rubber pads. Beckwith calls the path a “work in progress” as it will evolve and change when materials, subject to weather and wear, require replacement.

Other features include a greenhouse constructed of recycled plastic bottles, a pallet wall, chalkboard, a magnet wall, maze and an activity table with large-scale wooden versions of tic-tac-toe, Jenga, sorting blocks and cedar logs. A panel of black PVC pipes makes a Lite-Brite type board where kids can slide in foam pool noodles to make patterns. Hands-on play is the name of the game here.

Even during the pandemic, small groups and families frequented the delightful destination.

“People were there daily,” says Beckwith. “Some would use gloves or wipes, but other than when the City shut down, the space was used.”

Though designed for kids, evidence of visits by college students can be seen in “Go Wolves” scrawled on the chalkboard there. Pre-Coronavirus, students visited as groups. Beckwith says the last large group was from Elm Street Elementary’s Environmental Club.

“We had 50 kids there that day,” she recalls. “They planted plants and helped paint the back of the pallet wall.”

Seniors from Newnan High’s Ambassador Club helped complete the job with pretty, finishing touches.

Available from sunup to sundown daily, the KNB space is not a playground as typically defined, according to Beckwith; rather, it’s a hands-on exploratory experience for children. It’s also a litter-free, smoke-free zone, not surprising for a greenspace.

From butterfly bushes and coneflower to red hot poker and turtlehead, the names of plants found at the pollinator garden are as whimsical as playtime there. The assortment varies with the seasons but all are perennials, so they come back each year, no replanting required.

A visit during the fall or winter won’t look the same as spring or summer. When at its full-bloom glory, you’ll experience the sights and smells of lantana, jasmine, rosemary and more. The flora encourages winged visitors including bumblebees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Haven and home to crawling and flying things, this green space is alive with critters of all kinds, including squirrels, red-headed woodpeckers, finches and more.

For a couple of years, Brandon and Rachel Hand of Newnan have been regular visitors with their twin daughters Bella and Presley. “We call it ‘Recycle Park,’” says Rachel. “The girls love it. We could stay out there forever.” The girls’ favorite activities include the Newnan Rocks leave one/take one painted rock exchange, the Lite Brite-style board, and dropping balls into twisty tubes.

The KNB Pollinator Garden and Outdoor Classroom welcomes volunteers to help maintain plants and assist with weeding the garden space. Future plans at the space include adding a merry-go-round, according to Beckwith. A step-up deck shaped like a ladybug or butterfly remains on the 2021 wish list as does adding a picnic table. There’s no word yet on a future water feature, but when your community partner is a bottled water company, ideas flow like H2O.

Right, from top : 1. Old CD cases find new life as whimsically painted décor in a repurpose project at Keep Newnan Beautiful's pollinator garden and outdoor classroom. 2. A bamboo teepee is presently bare but a new Jasmine plant will soon provide natural cover giving it a “willow hut” effect. 3. Built in March 2020 by Niagara Cares, the community outreach arm of Newnan’s Niagara Bottling Company, this bottle house offers children another hands-on play/learn option. It's hard to get greener than a greenhouse made from recycled plastic bottles! 4. Dropping balls down colorful twisty tubes is a favorite for kids at the KNB play space.

NCM