creating & Nurturing the native Garden

The Garrison School's Native Wildlife Garden beautifies the courtyard between the library, the Middle School, and the school entrance. Eight years ago, sod filled this space. It took an idea, collaboration between parents and students, and a lot of physical labor to transform the space into what's now a lush garden.
 
"Every single plant in there is a native plant," said Anne Symmes. "The garden shows the range of beauty that native plants can bring. It's really inspiring for the community." Review Symmes' list of the native plants that comprise the garden here.

Symmes, Nancy Ganswindt, and the Eco-Moms group dreamed up the idea for a children's learning garden in 2008. Symmes is a horticulturalist and landscape designer. She works as Horticulturalist and Garden Educator at the Beatrix Farrand Garden at Bellefield in Hyde Park. Ganswindt is a Garrison School alumna, who at the time was majoring in Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont.

Symmes and Ganswindt submitted a proposal to the school's administrators, which was approved. "We got a grant from the Easter Foundation, the Osborn family foundation," Symmes said. "They wanted to support our Eco-Kids group. We bought some supplies and all the plants with the funds." Eco-Kids was an after-school environmental group for students. "It started when our kids were in Kindergarten," Symmes said.
 
Symmes, Gainswindt and the Eco-Moms involved the students in planning the garden. "We let the kids come up with design ideas for the garden," Symmes said. View a collection of those designs below.

The condition and location of the courtyard made the project more complex. The crew removed a lot of construction rubble. "You can't get a truck in there," Symmes said. "We hauled in a ton of manure -- and had to haul it through the building." Symmes noted that the team planted a section of the garden at a time over a three-year period. "There was a lot of physical work," she said. "The turf-busting was very, very hard."

Now that the garden is mature, a meadow section features native meadow plants. Birds and wildlife find refuge in a section of shrubs. Vines cover a wall. "We put a pond in," Symmes said. "But, it became a bog. We got the water from a stream, and cattails came in that water."
 
The garden supports and encourages insects. "Native caterpillars and moths need native plants supportive of Lepidoptera to lay eggs on and reproduce," Symmes said. "There are tons of bees in that garden. They're there -- pollinating like mad."
 
Symmes noted the commitment of Kevin Keegan, the Middle School science teacher, to the Native Garden. "He organizes a maintenance day in the garden with the seventh and eighth graders," Symmes said.

Garden creation photos by Anne Cleves Symmes.