‘It’s gorgeous.’ Shawnee honors its Belgium past in this park’s cottage garden

When Belgian immigrants came to America, many of them found their way to the Shawnee area in the late 1800s and after.

They settled on family farms of 10 to 40 acres, grew vegetables as they had done back home and sold the produce at market in Kansas City. By 1930, Belgian-born immigrants made up 28% of Shawnee’s population, and many more residents were children of those immigrants.

Shawnee celebrates its Belgian heritage in West Flanders Park at 55th Street and Nieman Road, where poppies grow in the spring near a marker that highlights the immigration story, Belgium’s role in World War I and Shawnee’s sister city relationship with the West Flanders town of Pittem.

Now, the city and a crew of volunteers have enhanced the park’s European flavor with a new garden that resembles the cottage gardens of Belgium — eight beds planted within a series of walkways that form concentric half-circles.

The most prominent feature is a wooden cottage-like structure — built by local contractor Henry Specht — to house gardening tools and equipment.

“Everyone’s got a shed, but we’ve got a shed,” said Neil Holman, the city’s parks and recreation director. ”It’s gorgeous. It’s a focal point. It tells you it’s a different type of garden.”

Fortuitous timing helped the project along.

The park’s rose garden — created years ago by local gardening enthusiasts — had been ravaged by disease and had lost its cadre of volunteer caretakers, Holman said. In keeping with the West Flanders theme, he wanted to refurbish the area with a European-style garden that was similar to one you’d see in Belgium.

Meanwhile, Master Gardeners from the Johnson County K-State Research and Extension office were about to lose their demonstration garden at the Wonderscope children’s museum, which is moving from Shawnee to south Kansas City in the fall. The group was looking for a new spot to carry out the teaching mission of a demonstration garden.

“It was a perfect relationship, a perfect marriage, for that park,” Holman said.

Shawnee resident Cindy Hobbs, one of three Extension Master Gardeners spearheading the project, said she wishes that cameras could have captured the gardeners’ faces when they learned of Holman’s vision about a year ago.

“It’s Kansas. How do you build a Belgian garden with plants that thrive in Kansas?”

The city commissioned the overall layout and paid for the plants, sidewalks, shed and other infrastructure. The horticulture was left to the volunteer gardeners, who preferred an informal Belgian cottage look to a formal design.

Over the winter, the Master Gardeners identified Belgian themes for the beds and chose the plants for each, in keeping with the cottage style. For example, ornamental plants were picked for the native garden, so it feels more like Europe than a Midwestern prairie.

The volunteers planted the garden in June. In addition to the ornamental natives, visitors can see a children’s garden with touchable plants like snapdragons and lamb’s ear, a kitchen garden with vegetables, two cottage gardens, plus beds with herbs, roses and plants that attract pollinators.

“Roses are not particularly Belgian,” Hobbs said. “However, we also wanted to make sure we honored the … pioneers who first implemented their vision of a garden at West Flanders Park.”

Some plants are familiar to the casual gardener, but others aren’t. All are labeled with their botanical and common names — including two rows of “Little Henrys” that are distasteful to dogs and meant to keep them from tromping through the garden. They’re growing next to a walkway frequented by people and pets.

Plans call for the garden to be expanded in two more phases. Meanwhile, the Master Gardeners lavish it with love.

“There are three chairs, 15 bed captains and over 70 additional Extension Master Gardener volunteers,” Hobbs said.

West Flanders is one of nine demonstration gardens maintained by Johnson County Extension. While working there, Hobbs and her crew share their gardening knowledge with each other and with visitors who ask questions.

“From an Extension standpoint, we are all about research-based, non-biased education,” said Dennis Patton, Johnson County Extension horticulturist. “The demonstration gardens are one way of taking Extension education to the people where people naturally tend to go ... and also providing them with beauty and enjoyment.”

Demonstration gardens, with their plant labels, show visitors what grows well here and how it is maintained, increasing their chance of successful gardening at home. The other Johnson County locations:

▪ K-State Horticulture Research Center, Olathe: A backyard garden of vegetables, herbs and fruits designed with the home gardener in mind. It’s at 35230 W. 135th St.

▪ Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead, Overland Park: At 137th and Switzer streets, this site contains a butterfly garden, a children’s garden, an old fashioned garden and shrub garden.

▪ Sunset office building, Olathe: Plants for this “Garden Gallery” at 11811 S. Sunset Drive were picked for their ornamental attributes, environmental friendliness, reduced maintenance and innovative garden design.

▪ Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens: This Monet Garden was planted in the style of the artist’s gardens in France, blending flowers by color and letting them grow freely. The arboretum is at 8909 W. 179th St.

▪ Shawnee Indian Mission, Fairway: A vegetable garden representative of the farm that operated between 1839 and 1862 at the mission, 53rd Street and Mission Road.

▪ Shawnee Town 1929: Two gardens have been planted at Johnson Drive and Cody Street — a pesticide-free herb garden and a country garden with perennials and newly released annuals.

▪ Wassmer Park, Prairie Village: A central urn anchors a formal pocket garden in the city’s newest park at 6700 Roe Ave.

▪ Wilderness Science Center, Overland Park: Next to Blue Valley Middle School at 163rd Street and Nall Avenue, this garden is used to teach students throughout the Blue Valley district but is open to the public when classes aren’t in session. The garden demonstrates environmentally friendly practices using plants that are native to the Midwest.

For more details, and to learn when Master Gardeners will be working at each spot, visit johnson.k-state.edu. Click on Lawn and Garden, then Demonstration Gardens.

This story was originally published July 6, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "‘It’s gorgeous.’ Shawnee honors its Belgium past in this park’s cottage garden."