Hi All, Good question about liability insurance. Most municipalities will hold that over your head unless you get all of the gardeners to sign waivers releasing them from any legal responsibility. Here in Manitoba if gardeners want to get liability insurance they form a Horticultural Society and join the Manitoba Horticultural Association, they purchase group insurance for which is really inexpensive. It means that if someone gets hurt, instead of sueing the property owner, they sue the insurance company. I learned a new word from the list serve today 'cowboy gardeners'. In our part of town we have been without assurance of permanance since 1991. In 2001 the provincial government funded a private corporation to purchase the garden, well, the corporation got into a bit of financial trouble and it wasn't long before they began to look at the garden as a 'slush fund'. Then the fun started. Most of the employees are young people who are cutting their teeth at their 'first real job', and have degrees in social sciences, they think 'what can there be to it, gardening, you just throw a seed in the ground', these are the cowboy gardeners. Their real concern is not the gardeners, or the garden, but how to manage the garden out of existence, and to convert it into dollars. This is in an area where80% of the land is built or paved over and every time it rains 80% of the rainwater goes into storm sewers which are connected to the real sewer and there you have it a million gallons of raw sewage into the Red River. I guess it is easier for municipal officials to go crying to Ottawa for funds to improve the cleaning of the river, than to allow greenspaces to absorb rainwater runoff. And that is only tip of the iceburg. So Doreen in Phoenix, if you have only been trying to save your garden since 2003, better dig in for the long haul. And best of luck. Karen
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