The Garden Club of Dayton and our Native Prairie Area
‘One of the 1st phases of our School garden included a native prairie area with plugs donated by the Garden Club of Dayton. Several ladies from the Garden Club have been with us since we first started planning the garden. They also took over the planting, maintenance and informational aspects of our native prairie area as well.
To prepare the area, we put down newspaper to kill the grass, and turned the dirt over to make planting easier. Lesson here: dont put out newspapers without wetting them down first-especially when it’s windy!). After the area had been prepared several ladies came out and worked individually with our students to plant with plugs.
They designed the planting so that we would have lots of flowers in bloom around the edges of the area, with grasses more on the inside. As the students planted, they learned about the plant, what its name was, what it would contribute to the area, etc. The ladies even developed several manuals for us, with pictures and information about each plant, so that students could learn to identify them.
During the first year
we had over 24 Monarch caterpillars that we spotted on our milkweed, and students were amazed to see them, as well as the butterflies which would grace our garden. The flowers were beautiful, and this living memorial only continues each year to bring us a wonderful outdoor classroom for not only the plants, but also the many caterpillars, birds, and spiders who make their home there.
In the fall of this past year (2019), the Garden Club students raised 10+ caterpillars, taken from this native area. Students from the club took care of the caterpillars in butterfly houses in their classrooms. They fed them, made sure they had water, etc, and when they transitioned into butterflies, they went out into the garden with their entire classroom and released the monarchs. Such a treat, and wonderful experience for our students!
