Paul Bowles couldn’t decide between purple and pink.
Paintbrush in hand, his two-foot-tall frame waddled from the art station to the wooden planter he was decorating, where he continued to craft his masterpiece in bright purple paint.
His mother squatted next to him with another paintbrush, smoothing the lines together to create some kind of coherent image — a flower, maybe.
The pair had been at the Monroe County Public Library to print something but ended up at Generations Gardening Together, an event organized by the public library and the Creative Aging Festival.
For the fourth year in a row, children ages 4 and up, along with the senior community of Monroe County, were invited to the small community garden at the library to share an afternoon of art, creativity and learning through the intergenerational event.
“It’s a lovely garden party,” was how Christina Jones, a library employee, described it. “We try to inspire creativity through interacting with the natural world.”
This was Jones’ second year participating in the program. She said the hour and a half is usually spent gardening, completing a take-home craft and doing art.
“None of the seniors or children know each other,” she said and looked out at the small patio area where an elderly woman in thick glasses was teaching a young girl how to plant a sweet pepper called Chocolate Beauty.
The girl’s eyes were focused, her dowel firm in her hand as she followed her mentor’s instructions carefully.
The woman in thick glasses bent down to a bucket and returned with two cupped hands full of water. The girl followed.
She dipped her hands in three times before giving up — they were too small.
One woman held a potted flower she’d just planted with a boy and was teaching him how to keep it healthy at home.
Potting a single flower and learning how to care for it was the craft of the day, Jones explained.
A toddler was being entertained by the noises a woman’s electric wheelchair made, each button the woman pressed eliciting a new wave of excitement.
Other children painted stencils and butterflies to decorate the planters — “to really make it their own,” Jones said — while some stuck to sidewalk chalk.
But everywhere, old and young from a variety of cultural backgrounds were making new friends.
Jan Bays, a representative from the Creative Aging Festival, said she came because she liked plants, and she liked kids, so it just made sense.
The festival features dozens of events for seniors throughout the month of May, spanning from activities like this one to gentle yoga to singing workshops.
The public library’s garden isn’t just open for this event, though — it’s around all year, and through summer and early fall, the library plays host to events that fit in with its children’s programming, Jones said.
For instance, if they’re working with a science program, they might pick flowers and grind up their petals to make dyes, she said.
Most of the plants they use for these events and for the garden in general, come from local sources like Mays Greenhouse, Jones said.
The Generations Gardening Together event has been a success the past four years, Jones said. There aren’t any plans to discontinue the event in the future.
“We just want this to be an energetic part of the library,” Jones said.
