Schoolyard Garden Insights, Part 2 Obstacles and solutions for the schoolyard native plant garden By Terry Maxwell
Editor’s Note: Especially to our readers in temperate, sub- Arctic, and Arctic regions, this may seem like an odd time to include an article about schoolyard gardens — fair enough. Plant growth isn’t exactly top of mind when there’s snow on the ground. As you read this second of Terry Maxwell’s two articles on schoolyard gardens, however, it will become clear just how much preparation goes into such an under- taking. Between grant-writing and community outreach, you need several months to put all the pieces in place.
T
HE MOMENT HAS COME. You’ve decided to create a native plant garden on your school grounds. You’ve won a grant. Your students are excited and
motivated, and your administrators believe in your vision. Warm weather comes and you take a day or two to create a space that you and your students are proud of. You invite the community. Your class is wanting to know how their plants are growing. Students are asking you every day if anything new has happened in the garden. The administration is tout- ing your garden as an example of outside-the-box thinking
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and initiative. You are on the proverbial mountaintop. Then… May approaches and the demands of school
are causing you to feel every waking second slip past. You wonder how you could possibly fit any more into your cha- otic school schedule. Maybe you’re burdened by a stack of ungraded papers, family obligations, extra-curricular duties, lesson preparation for next week, work for a graduate course you are taking on the side, or any other of the plethora of things that make you feel as if time is slipping away. You are burned out, and you don’t feel you can add one more thing to your busy life. One day when you slowly drive past your native plant
garden, you think to yourself that it looks a little overgrown. A week passes before the next time you look at it. Students turn their minds to summer. Administration then asks what your plans are for taking care of the garden over the summer because a parent has commented about the “weed patch” on the school grounds. Your triumph begins to feel like a prob- lem you have to solve, instead of the powerful tool you had hoped it would become. You wonder if you’ve taken on too much. Let’s look at the obstacles, and find some solutions to fostering a native plant garden on your K–12 school campus.
Green Teacher 126
Photos by Terry Maxwell
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