Just a few months ago, the entrance to the Robert G. Stephens Federal Building on Hancock Avenue met visitors with dead grass on one side and an ivy thick enough to hide secrets on the other.
Now, peppers and pollinators have replaced the ivy. Mints, Coneflowers and Brown-eyed Susans are rising where grass once died.
It's gone from nothing people could use to the first People's Garden in the state. And U.S. Department of Agriculture officials hope it will lead to more gardens in Northeast Georgia.
"We hope people will take a look at the garden and then go home and plant drought-tolerant and native plants in their own gardens," said Mary Ann McQuinn, a public affairs specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service who helped get the People's Garden off - err, in - the ground in Athens.
It's called the People's Garden for a reason. When President Abraham Lincoln created the USDA, he deemed it the people's department. The current USDA secretary inaugurated the national garden initiative on Lincoln's birthday in February, challenging the government agency's employees to plant gardens at their offices.
But the gardens aren't meant just to spruce up the landscape. They must benefit the community and be community-based, as well as incorporate sustainable practices.
The Athens People's Garden fits those parameters.
The USDA built a team with members of several local agencies and turned to David Burle, a horticulture professor at the University of Georgia. One of Burle's students, Kristen Akin, designed the garden.
"It was amazing how everything came together," McQuinn said. "We really liked the design because we felt like residents could use it in their own backyard."
But the design was only half the equation. This project didn't really have a budget, McQuinn said, and needed more than 200 plants.
Several local growers stepped in to help the garden along, either by donating plants or selling them at a wholesale cost. The State Botanical Garden of Georgia also chipped in.
Hands On Northeast Georgia provided tools for volunteers to dig out the old grass and ivy and plant Crossvine, Lemon Balm and Red Buckeyes in their place.
By the time the work was completed, the People's Garden actually became the People's Gardens. Two plots focus on plants and grasses that can fight - and mostly survive - the summer heat.
Around the corner, tomatoes, kale, sweet potatoes and peppers share a plot with natural pollinators like Milkweed - butterflies love Milkweed, McQuinn said - that attract all kinds of insects.
The second garden also provides something the first one doesn't: Food. Through the Feds Feed Families program, the USDA has donated the vegetables that have been grown to local food banks.
"We had a strong first harvest," McQuinn said.
McQuinn hopes it will be the first of many. The entire building - and there are a lot of agencies in that building - has taken ownership of the gardens, rotating care of it on a monthly basis.
The gardens may have played a roll in making the Stephens building itself more environmentally friendly. When it came time to replace the roof this year, officials decided to go green. The new roof will have thousands of little plants on it to cut energy costs.
"If we had not put in the People's Garden, I'm not sure if we'd have that green roof," McQuinn said. "The green initiative has momentum."
Per its namesake, officials want the People's Garden to gain momentum among the people, too. The United Nations predicts that the world food output will need to rise exponentially in the next 40 years to feed the extra 2.5 billion people expected to be living by 2050.
To keep up, everyone could stand to reconnect to the land.
"Through gardening, people can get an understanding of what a farmer has to go through," McQuinn said. "They can see how dependent we really are on Mother Nature."
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