HELLO

It's about time I started a Cherokee School garden journal. I love to garden, hate to journal, but you need to know what is happening in the garden so here goes!

Our Past Work At Cherokee

Let Turley Bloom, working with A Third Place Community Foundation, http://www.turleyok.blogspot.com/, started with one small bed of native plants which was later moved due to work in front of the school to solve drainage problems. We then added a bed inside the courtyard for color and variety including a variety of stones. This bed is on the west end of a north facing wall so it gets shade much of the day but hot bright sun in the evening so I am proud and amazed when I see how beautiful it is! The stars of the show this spring were the columbines which are happily self sowing in the bed and I gathered some seed for our seed/plant exchange.


In the fall of 2009 we tackled the front of the school where there must have been a very up to date landscape at one time but only the occasional shrub remained, looking a bit random. We gathered shrubs on sale and from gardeners who had more than they needed and, using a turf stripper to establish the beds, filled in the foundation plantings with Yellow twig dog wood (Cornus sericea ‘flaviramea’) Victor crape myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica ‘Victor’) Variegated dogwood (Cornus alba ‘argeneo-marginata’) Purpleleaf Sand Cherry Bush (Prunus x cistena)
Little Giant Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis ‘Little Giant’) Dwarf Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina domestica) Leyland cypress (Cupressocyparis leylandii) Bird of Paradise (ceasalpinii gillesii)Beautybush (Kolkwitzia amabilis) Hibiscus (red pink and texas star Hibiscus coccineus)Wine and Roses weigela(Weigela florida, forsythia, And along Peoria by the parking lot we put in redbud trees from a grant administered by Steve Eberle with The Indian Health Care Resources Center, Food For Life program, http://www.ihcrc.org/healthEducation/foodforlife.html

We also planted an assortment of trees along the ridge south of the school and established more raised beds in the fenced in vegetable garden (thanks again to the grant mentioned above) which had been abandoned but thanks to the interest of Ms. Gault is now an outdoor classrooom again.

A Tulip poplar, bald cypress and crabapple were added in the front in round beds filled with flowers and a large triangular bed on the southwest corner was begun with blue and white salvias of various sorts, coreopsis (perrenial) yarrow and native wisteria.

Spring of 2010 we returned (in the rain) to plant crape myrtle along the east fence, more trees along the ridge, and bird friendly trees near a bird feeder along the south wall of the school. Our goal is to make this area a bird banquet so bird watching will be one outdoor classroom use of this area. We also added a southern magnolia just for fun.

Weeding and adding mulch will be major chores as the beds fill in, but as the plants become thick enough to shade the ground the weeds will be less of a problem. Watering was not much of a problem this year as it seemed to rain mostly when we needed, just as i was thinking i really need to water....how lucky!

The Future and What Is Needed Now, and How You Can Help

We can easily divide the school yard into areas for adoption by Cherokee friends and family. You, your friends, your family, your church group can take a bed or area of the school and no gardening experience is necessary. If you see a bed or area you would like to take responsibility for let me know. If you are new to gardening we can find an experienced gardener to work with you. Every inch of every school should be an outdoor classroom and two of the most important lessons can be how to learn and that learning never stops.


Some goals I have that you may find interesting and may want to adopt as your part in our landscape (in other words here are several ways even beyond gardening itself that you can be a part of this school and community building project) include:

regular gardener hours so students and new gardeners can expect to find a mentor in the garden say every Saturday at 10 am for example

a garden curriculum, I am sure many are available but one tailored to our garden would be nice

a photo album of the garden

quizzes or scavenger hunts in the garden

host a wildlife count

self guided tour to help encourage visitors to the garden

garden signs to help the tour, identify areas of the garden volunteers have adopted "this bed cared for by..." and highlighting certain plants

developing the summer program in the vegetable garden, maybe including cookouts

Let Turley Bloom hosts a seed/plant exchange every spring and fall. The first one was at O'Brien park, then at A Third Place, then at Cherokee; and our next swap will be held this fall at Greeley Elementary School on North Cinncinati and 63rd. Just as good neighbors have always swapped plants Cherokee wants to be a good neighbor to Greeley and help them get their garden going.

Stay tuned for all the exciting news. Come to our Let Turley Bloom meetings every second Tuesday at 6:30 pm at A Third Place Community Center, 6514 N. Peoria Ave.; we have a free meal, talk about gardening around the area or in our homes, and watch a movie or documentary about taking care of the earth and one another.

Let Turley Bloom has also transformed the Welcome To Turley signs, has started the roadside wildflower plot by Highway 75 in Turley along with the Dept. of Transporation and the Native Plant Society of Oklahoma, and has planted wildflowers and native plant flower beds at businesses and along public spaces and abandoned intersections in our area. We also have removed grafitti. It is all a start, but the seeds are planted and we are seeing our area begin to bloom in many ways.