PHOTOS: MIKE GRAFF
“About six or seven years ago, we were looking to build a
permanent art installation that would be a place of beau-
ty and healing and would bring the community together,”
says Grupe director Sandy Huber. While in Sacramento for
a meeting, Huber found her inspiration: The State Capitol
rose garden was in full bloom and messages of peace writ-
ten by schoolchildren were scattered throughout. She was
moved by the beauty of the place and what the children
wanted for their families and their world.
The Stockton garden is part of the California-based non-
profit International World Peace Rose Garden project, the
brainchild of TJ David and Sylvia Villalobos, whose goal is
to create artistically designed rose gardens that help trans-
form ordinary community spaces into vibrant, beautiful
places for peace. Huber contacted the pair and was given
permission to create a sister garden to the Martin Luther
King Jr. “I Have a Dream” World Peace Rose Garden in At-
lanta.
Both gardens share a theme of peace through nonvio-
lence. In the Stockton garden, 240 roses are planted in a
sun-shaped design with the peace plaza at the center and
rows of roses jutting out from the core like rays of sunshine;
smaller f lower beds tucked between the rays represent the
orbiting planets. The roses were nurtured for a year at the
Huber’s family farm in Lodi (husband Kevin Huber is presi-
dent of Grupe) so they could be transferred to University
Park in April 2016 as mature, blooming f lowers.
“Keeping the plants in 10-gallon buckets for that first
year helped us create an instant garden,” says designer TJ
David. “The idea is to have as many blooms as possible for
as long as possible.” Sacramento landscape architect Jeffrey
Gamboni created the working drawings for the project. In
addition to the roses, University Park participates in the
inspirational messages of peace contest with local school-
children. The top winners have their messages engraved on
plaques and displayed in the garden for one year. “Through
this program, we are enhancing peace in the world by us-
ing rose gardens to open people’s hearts and minds,” says
Villalobos. n
Laurie Lauletta-Boshart is a contributing writer and
editor for consumer publications, Fortune 500 companies,
small business and higher education. She has written
for Dwell, ESPN, Wall Street Journal, SI.com (Sports
Illustrated) and others. On Twitter @laurieboshart or
www.wordplaycommunications.com.
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