Location: 555 Mortimer Ave, East York, ON M4J 2G9
This project can be traced back to when USS group member Catherine told her work colleague Kirsten about some of the projects our group had worked on. Kirsten, an active member of the RH McGregor PS parent council, knew that the school had really supportive staff and that Mary, a grade 3 teacher, was really interested in revitalizing the school gardens. When Catherine introduced them, they knew it would be an excellent collaboration. The group met in early february to look at possible locations for a school planting.
Looking through the spaces, Sayeh saw two possibilities: the first, was an under-used triangular fenced-off garden which if the fence was removed, could make an excellent garden. The second space was a canoe near the schools vegetable gardens which would offer a contained space for planting and keeping milkweed in a contained setting. This would offer children a space to closely watch the unfolding of the close relationship between milkweed plants and monarch butterflies. The school was very supportive of both suggestions.
Sayeh offered to provide the plants for the triangle garden from plants that had been grown the previous year by members and were over-wintering in her garden. She also suggested starting a seedsitting program using winter-sowing for grade 3 students so they could understand the full process of growing a native plant and the importance of stratification. The plants would be too small to use for the triangle garden planting but could be used for additional plantings the following Fall.
Over three days, with the coordination of Mary, Sayeh and Kirsten visited all six of the third grade classes. Each class would be divided into 4 groups of students and each group would get a seed variety and a card had useful facts such as color, growing conditions and wildlife benefit. By March, the fence in front of the garden had been removed and all the pots were being monitored for signs of growth.
As the date for the planting was set for April 29, Mary and Kirsten asked Sayeh whether she would be interested in taking part in the school’s annual fun fair. Sayeh thought it would be a great way to reach out to the larger community. We gave away about 50 seedlings to those who were interested in growing them.
In preparation for the actual planting on the morning of May 29th, Sayeh and Pat arrived at the garden to remove the extra vegetation. The garden was being prepared with a no-dig method. As a Master gardener and expert at tree identification, Pat was able to identify all the saplings growing in the garden. Using her extractigator, a specialized tool to pull out saplings, the garden was cleared of invasive and excessive saplings. The native ones that could be saved, were potted up and are beginning to grow again and will be re-homed for future projects.
Mary did a fantastic job in mobilizing the community, and in the afternoon, the children and parents arrived, eager to work on the garden. The parents and children took turns in working on the garden giving everyone a chance to take part.
And if you thought that this project ended here, there’s more!!! Remember those seeds the third-graders had wintersown? Well, those seeds were germinating and needed to be potted up. There was also that case of the canoe garden. It had a diversity of invasive plants growing in it so, starting in early April Mary covered the soil with black plastic for a process called solarization to essentially heat up the soil and kill those invasives. The children’s wintersown plants were used to hold down the plastic and I think the extra warmth really helped them germinate.
On June 16th, Brandy, Erin and Simona responded to Mary’s call for parent volunteers and one by one, the six grade three classes came to take part in potting up their seedlings. Each student got to take a seedling home. Sayeh has taken the remainder home and enlisted the help of the other group members to divide, pot up and take care of them over the summer
And then there was the canoe! Yes, we even planted that with milkweed!
One last word I would like to say is that the only reason this long and complex project was successful was through the initiative of a dedicated parent and incredible hard work and support of the principal, staff, parent council and all grade 3 teachers, especially Mary who took the lead for all in-school organizing. I am told that once again the parents have stepped up to water the garden over the summer. I am looking forward to our next fall planting at the school.
