Above, Ken Blumberg and Sarah Weinstein during the Aug. 1 tunnel cap garden cleanup. Photo by Mira Whiting Photography
It might be a smile brought about by a sunflower waving in the wind along the side of the walkway headed to Shawmut Station. Or perhaps it’s the scent of a day lily picked up while cutting through that same walkway from Mather Street to Melville Avenue.
In both cases and more, the flowers and plants in the Shawmut Corridor Gardens, also known as the “tunnel cap” gardens, don’t just sprout up on their own. They are the result of work done by sanctioned and unsanctioned neighborhood volunteer gardeners over the course of 50 years, most recently by Melville Park couple Ken Blumberg and Sarah Weinstein, who are stepping away to let others take charge of the shovels and rakes.
The tunnel cap between Shawmut and Melville Avenue. Seth Daniel photo
“I’m realizing that as we all get older and our joints get cracking, it’s time to bring in new people,” said Sarah. “I’d hate to see this die because it’s become an incredible asset.”
Jenny Moye-Gibbons, also a resident of Melville Park, said that the Weinsteins had been involved with the tunnel cap before she stepped in during the 1990s and early 2000s. When her life got busy 15 years ago, they took over.
She noted they have done a great job organizing the monthly neighbor cleanups and “weeding Wednesdays” – as well as a new initiative to bring in volunteers from the non-profit Boston Cares to assist, all while Sarah has been lending her gardening expertise to the effort for more than a decade.
“I’m so grateful to her and Ken for keeping it going all these years.”
Sarah Weinstein talked with Boston Cares volunteer Sonji White during the Aug. 1 cleanup at the tunnel cap. Boston Cares has been an integral part of keeping the gardens going with volunteer power. Photo by Mira Whiting Photography
Sarah said that she and Ken they moved to the area in the late 1970s, not long after he had returned from service in Vietnam, and began to raise a family. Both were attuned to nature and environmental issues from working for government environmental agencies at the state and federal levels.
At the time, the MBTA had just started to serve the Ashmont Line with six-car trains instead of the two- and four-car trains that had long traveled the route. Then, in the 1980s, when they had built out the tunnel cap, she and other neighbors began the gardens with a whim and a stem.
“It literally started because I had too many day lilies for our yard and we dug them into the sides of the cap,” Sarah said. “When they re-did the walkway in the 1980s, they painted it with a waterproof paint with sand in it and it wrinkled like elephant skin…We wondered why the end of the Red Line on our side couldn’t be as nice as it was in Cambridge.
“We kept pushing them for a three-block walkway and to see the whole picture and go beyond the stations,” she recalled.
In 2008, when Shawmut Station was renovated, volunteers pushed to get a nicer hardscape on the tunnel cap and to get a better partnership and plot for the gardens. Though the MBTA was hesitant at first, then-state Rep. Marty Walsh was helpful in getting movement in the right direction, and someone at the city level pushed it as well, producing what has now become the tunnel cap gardens.
“The T did come around and it was a huge success, and they’ve become pretty good partners,” Sarah said. “Since then, we’ve been working and we’ve had the great fortune to add terrific volunteers from Boston Care. They have sent us hundreds of people that sign up because they want to contribute to the community and like being outside.”
Sarah and Ken said the plantings have been an experiment. Some plantings work and others don’t because the cap is just a shallow tunnel cover and there isn’t the perfect ecology to make all things thrive.
They recalled some plants that are 20 years old. Then there is an elderberry bush that everyone really wanted along the edges, but it just couldn’t cope. Meanwhile, another elderberry nearby that was less desired took off and is now 10 feet tall.
On Aug. 1, neighborhood volunteers and tunnel cap crew gathered for their monthly cleanup, and also held an organizational meeting to discuss getting new volunteers to take the lead from the Weinsteins in 2027. So far, there has been a good response, but more volunteers are being sought.
Anyone who is interested in working closely on maintaining and coordinating the tunnel cap gardens can email Sarah Weinstein at sarahweinst@gmail.com.
