(Greensburg, IN) – The Decatur County Arts Council dedicated a cherry tree grove in Rebekah Park Thursday afternoon.
Sixty cherry blossom trees are growing in the middle of the park, after the Arts Council applied for a grant from the Honda Foundation.
“This idea came from when they were doing Stellar Communities many, many moons ago, and it was an idea that was created with that architecture firm that came in and reimagined what this park could look like, and one of their ideas was to put a cherry tree grove on this property,” said Mandy Lohrum with the Decatur County Arts Council.
“When we were looking for a project to do for this year, for the arts council, it was one of those projects that kind of came to the top and we went, ‘Okay! Let’s see if we can’t get a grant and get some dollars to support this,'” Lohrum added. “We were able to do that with the Honda grant. We used Patterson’s Nursery to do the landscaping and install the trees, so it was a great partnership.”
Roxanna Metz with Honda says the scope of the cherry tree grove is big.
“As community members drive by and they look, they’re probably going to be in awe at what 60 trees look like,” Metz said.
Mayor Joshua Marsh says the grove celebrates Greensburg and Decatur County’s relationships with Japanese companies such as Honda.
“I think it’s going to show decades of commitment going forward of how we can work together and what we can do to support each other,” Marsh said. “And it’s also a cultural and educational piece for residents who maybe have never seen a Japanese cherry tree before, or see the ones at Washington, D.C. that are on television. But now they can come to Rebekah Park and experience that.”
The bulk of the project’s funding came from the Honda grant.
