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Weed It & Reap: Train Track Garden

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Zinnias and marigolds grow in Bev Newell's train track garden on Oakdale Avenue at White Street in Toledo.

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Cement bases for a former water tower remain at the train tracks. Newell says the water tower fed steam engines decades ago.

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Newell placed this found hub cap on top of an old rusty pipe.

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A pot of petunias sits on a rock at Newell's garden.

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Newell placed sea shells she collected from Florida around her garden.

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Rather than throwing them away, Newell saved these railroad stakes and used them as art in her train track garden.

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A bee collects pollen from a shasta daisy.

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A pot of petunias sits on a rock.

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Newell watches a passing train.

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Newell says these boots are one of the best investments she made as a gardener, especially given the coal dust she walks through at her garden.

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A bee flies away from a hollyhock.

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A pot of petunias sitting on stones.

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Newell planted a garden at the train tracks on Oakdale at White streets in Toledo, Ohio. She lives a few blocks away, off of White Rd. (shown in photo).

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When Newell started gardening at these train tracks on Oakdale Avenue at White Street in Toledo six years ago, she planted flowers around the cement base of what she thinks may have been an old ice house.

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Newell incorporates natural and found objects in her garden. She thinks this piece of wood, next to a clump of iris from her grandmother's farm, is from a nearby building that has since been demolished.

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Newell waves as she often does at an approaching passing train. She planted a garden there and loves to watch the trains go by. She is sitting on a bench she made for the garden.

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