Transforming Garden at Greeley Elementary School

A Third Place and our volunteers transformed the front entry into one of our neighborhood elementary schools near us, Horace Greeley School, at 63rd and N. Cincinnati. Lifting the spirits of the children as they come and go, plus possibilities of outdoor science and nature learning. Read below for what we did a weekend ago, and call 4301150 if you want to be a part of our ongoing community gardening efforts. And go by and see Greeley and support the school and all our public schools.

Here’s what we did.
1. We stripped the turf, removed “all” the grass roots, laid paths of mulch over landscape fabric or cardboard across the back of the bed and into the bed in the middle of each wall (about half way between the windows). This creates smaller sections of the bed and allows easy access for care.
2. In each smaller section we centered a crape myrtle tree in the window. This will only need pruning to remove dead wood and any low branches that block the beautiful leggy look of crape myrtle trees. The reason some people cut the tops off must be to control the size but crape myrtles come in many sizes now and growth is stronger if they are not topped. They have white blooms and are Natchez variety.
3. Across the front of each bed is a row of white meadow salvia or sage; this will fill in by this time next year into a soft row of white flowers. If you want to see what they will look like in a year, the ones we planted at Cherokee School last fall were the same size then.
4. In a semicircle around the crape myrtle we planted yarrow, mostly yellow some red. This has soft ferny foliage and flowers in the summer that butterflies love.
5. In the back of the bed right in front of the path we planted daylilies and daffodils
6. In every planting hole we tried to place a daffodil or two. We planted 135 king Alfred daffodils and ran out, so it may be skimpy in spots but they will quickly spread as will the daylilies.
7. All the plants are drought resistant so in a couple years may only need water during extreme drought but while they are spreading their roots I recommend checking them every other day for a week or two then weekly if it doesn’t rain. Just pull back the mulch a little to see if the soil is damp about an inch down. It’s easy to just get the mulch wet or the bed may not dry out as fast as you think because of the mulch.