‘Gadfly’ Exiled From Garden

“I thought you’d be in jail by now,” Don Colflesh said laughingly to Barbara Hohol, his neighbor. Hohol has had several run-ins with the police due to her fixation with the local community garden on West 111th Street.

Hohol, a self-described “gadfly,” has been barred from the rather dusty garden for the past nine years on the grounds that she pruned and sheared generously without notifying the proper authorities.

In July, the steering committee of the West 111th Street People’s Garden allowed Hohol back in for her “gardening expertise,” but exiled her yet again in August for “pruning severely.”

Steering committee chair Bob Roistacher called the police on Hohol and asked cops to warn her away from the garden.

“We invited her back two months ago after 10 years, and the next day she was in here cutting away rose bushes,” said Roistacher.

“What goes on in the garden is the decision of the gardeners,” he added.

The garden was under the direction of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, but has since been transferred to the Department of Parks. According to a Department of Parks spokeswoman, the dispute between Roistacher and Hohol over their creative vision for the garden has delayed the registration process that the garden must go through in order to formally switch hands.

“If they can’t come to an agreement on what the garden should look like, we’re going to look for different individuals to run the park,” said the spokeswoman.

Hohol says that her work in the garden helps maintain what Roistacher neglects.

“He hasn’t done a bloody thing,” she said. “He doesn’t want anyone else to do it either. If it were gardened, I wouldn’t care.”

Walking through the garden, Hohol pointed out what she said were overgrown weeds, suffocated flowers, and tangled shrubs. She noted the pruning that she had done, as well as the violets that she had planted with a third grade class from The School at Columbia University. The land, Hohol said, needs improvements, such as tree maintenance and overgrowth control, and is being overlooked by garden coordinator Margaret Doyle. 

“Doyle said that I had destroyed the ‘secret garden.’ I question the secret and the garden part,” Hohol said.

Doyle was out of town and could not be reached for comment.

Roistacher maintains that Hohol’s work is harmful and unnecessary. He stated that the garden meets the standards set out by GreenThumb, a municipally run gardening program. In accordance with GreenThumb, the garden steering committee can exclude people who violate basic rules.

But Roistacher says he does want community involvement in the garden.
“If people are unhappy, they should help clean up,” said Roistacher.

Sonya Chandra can be reached at news@columbiaspectator.com.