Over at Garden Rant Mary Gray’s guest rant bewailed the state of many school grounds, all concrete and lawn. I am very familiar with the school grounds that she describes, but I feel fortunate that the children in our small town have a very different school experience.
Heath Elementary School wellhead
The Heath Elementary School, which opened in 1996, was built in a pasture surrounded by woodland. When the school bus pulls off the dirt road onto the driveway it passes a path that leads to the school’s wellhead. This area is well used for science study, with information about the importance of clean water, and how it is kept clean.
Heath School Entry
The children debark they welcomed by perennials on either side of the entrance.
Heath School Playing Fields
The school and its grounds are held in the embrace of a woodland, where science can be studied, and the beauties of nature can inspire art classes. Perhaps inspire a poem or essay or two as well.
Heath School Meadow
The meadow fills the circular drive where buses and cars drive up to, and then away from the entry. Right now it looks all neat having just been given a back to school trim, but in the spring it is a hazy blue meadow of lupines, followed by a bouquet of summer wildflowers.
Heath School Vegetable Garden
The newest addition to the school landscape is the vegetable garden, punctuated by some bright annuals. This has been producing for three or four years now and the soil gets better every year. There are some apple trees, too. I’d like to be able to tell you that the kids enjoy some of those vegetables at lunch but I am sure, absolutely sure, that they would never break the law which forbids this kind of activity. Isn’t the law interesting? There might be another lesson there.
This school with its gardens doesn’t come about just because it is a small school out in the country. It takes devoted and energetic parents who volunteer time, labor and money, and creative teachers who find a hundred ways to integrate the garden and the landscape into the Mass Curriculum Frameworks. Heath is pretty lucky!
Tags: Annuals, Our Community, Perennials, Vegetable garden, Vegetables
Annuals, Children gardening, Compost, Heath School, Other Gardens, Our Community, Sustainability, Trees, Wildflowers | Pat September 2, 2010 | 
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Fall Dandelion - Leontodon autumnalis
This blog is named for the common weed, dandelion or Taraxacum officinale. In the spring my lawn is covered with dandelions. I have learned not to use the lawn clippings from that season as mulch because I put dandelions in my perennial beds. Sometimes I don’t even put those clippings with lots of dandelions gone to see in the compost. I am not sure my compost pile gets hot enough to kill those seeds.
Now my lawn is dotted with a smaller yellow flower. I had been thinking this was hawkweed, but when I actually checked with my Peterson’s Guide to Wildflowers, I realized that this yellow flower is another dandelion, the fall dandelion, sometimes called false dandelion, but it is in another family. Its proper name is Leontodon autumnalis.
Like the familiar spring dandelion, the fall dandelion has a rosette of toothed leaves, but they are very narrow. The name Leontodon refer to the toothed leaves, as dent de lion (teeth of the lion) refer to the dandelion’s leaves. The rosette appears in the spring; in the fall a wiry stem appears very quickly. It will grow between 5 to 15 inches, but it does not have the milky sap of the dandelion.
The shaggy flower looks like a miniature dandelion blossom, but the underside of the petals are a rusty red. I was happy to learn that I am not the only person who has ever mistaken the fall dandelion for hawkweed. I used to have the orange hawkweed (Hieracium aurentiacum, yet another family) in my lawn, but it has disappeared.
From the photograph with this post you can see my lawn is not fine turf. Some might call it a typical weedy patch. I prefer to think of it as a flowery mead, with a whole series of flowers appearing in their season, violets, ground ivy, and lots of clover.
If it weren’t for Gail over at Clay and Limestone and Wildflower Wednesday I would probably not have done this bit of research to identify the wildflowers all over my lawn. Thanks, Gail.
Queen Anne's Lace
Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) appears on our roadsides and in the fields beginning in mid-July. I always think of it as a high summer plant. I never liked it much as a child, probably because I often saw it, or noticed it, when it was going by and curling into a cup-like shape that has given rise to another of its names, bird’s nest flower.
Like many flowers it does have several names. Others are bishop’s lace and wild carrot. It is easy to understand the name wild carrot because the root has a carrot-y smell, and it is edible although the roots quickly become woody and not very appealing.
At first glance Queen Anne’s lace appears to be a white flower, but upon closer inspection, there is a flower in the center that can be red or purple in some varieties. The Queen Anne’s Lace in my neighborhood is pure white. One legend has it that this colored flower is a drop of Queen Anne’s blood from when she pricked her finger with an embroidery needle. This colored flowers attracts pollinators.
Queen Anne’s Lace is not a native or rare wildflower, but I have chosen it for Wildflower Wednesday, because, in my maturity, I find it a beautiful flower which I admire on the roadsides, and bring into the house for a bouquet.
On another note entirely, don’t forget about the Free Community Harvest Supper on Sunday, August 22 from 4:30-6:30 pm. Good eats. Good music. And a good deed. Donations made at the Supper will go to fund Greenfield Farmers Market Vouchers for those in need. If you cannot attend, consider making a donation to Center for Self Reliance Food Pantry, 23 Osgood Street, Greenfield, MA 01301.
Wild boys in the wilds of Heath picking 'wild' lowbush blueberries
Just when I was preparing a handout for my Heath Fair talk on Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants, I learned about a new group blog www.beautifulwildlifegarden.com that is being written by some of my favorite bloggers, many of whom I got to meet in Buffalo.
Beautiful Wildlife Gardens will give you lots of information about the natural world around us – in different parts of the country. Informative and engaging. Which is what you might expect from a blog written by Helen Yoest (Gardening With Confidence), Barbara Pintozzi (Mr. McGregor’s Daughter), Chris McLaughlin (Kid Safe Landscape), Kelly Senser, (the editor of (National Wildlife Magazine), Kathy Green (All Things in Nature), Ellen Sousa (Turkey Hill Brook Farm right in in Massachusetts), Lisa Gustavson (Soil Sisters) and Gail Eichelburger (Clay and Limestone) who invented Wildflower Wednesday. They have a number of desires from the general creation of sustainable landscapes to the particular, like encouraging more bugs. Douglas Tallamy, author of one of my favorite books, Bringing Nature Home, says we need more bugs.
Here on our hill we are surrounded by wildlife. I had a most remarkable experience this summer with a newborn fawn, and last year’s visits by a porcupine. Once I walked down to the vegetable garden and came upon a HUGE flock of turkeys. I surprised them, and they me! – and they immediately flew into the air and down the hill to the tree line. Usually turkey sitings are not so dramatic. We hear the coyotes at night, and at noon. The next town has a noon whistle – which must wake up the coyotes because they respond with their own howl. We wait for it when the grandchildren are visiting.
We have wildflowers, and flowers that have gone wild. Never Plant Tansy!
Needless to say, we have our own kidsafe, wildlife safe, caterpillar safe, bird safe landscape. I’m delighted to know that I have a new place to visit that will encourage us all to be more aware of the wonders around us.
While I am talking about the wild world, I should mention my ‘colleague’ at The Recorder, Bill Danielson, who writes a fabulous column Speaking of Nature with special pages for kids. He also has a website of his own. Click here to see his columns and hear about his upcoming books.
Ryan left for home with his father last night – but not before a final flurry of activity. He helped me move the chicks out of the brooding box and into a larger space. The henhouse has two sections, one for the laying hens, and the equally large ‘entry’ which we arrange so the chicks only have 2/3 of the space. It is so dark in the this area, with the brooding box still in place, that I couldn’t get a photo of the happy chicks – who are now beginning to fly. Ryan is holding a Barred Rock, but the Black Stars are very adventurous birds.
Pitcher plants
Ryan and I went searching for adventure and visited the Rowe bog where carniverous pitcher plants grow right next to the road. I tried to identify this variety, and there are over 100, but have been unsuccessful so far. Any help you can give is welcome. I never visited the bog when the flowers were in their glory, never realized they were so pretty, even if they are looking away from the road. The bulbous structure at the bottom is the carniverous part and is unlike photos I have found of other pitcher plants. More research is required.
Ryan at Birch Glen Stables
The final adventure for Ryan this trip was a riding lesson at Birch Glen Stables. This wonderful place is ‘right around the corner’ from us and Joan Schoenhals is a patient and encouraging instructor. Riders begin at the beginning – with grooming the horse, and learning about the ‘tack’ which is to say the saddle and bridle and everything. Joan is attentive, and Ryan certainly is concentrating. We thought he had a good feel for handling the horse – and after only about 45 minutes actually on the horse! This summer Ryan is the first grandson to visit, so he is the first one to have a lesson, but soon the other boys will arrive and we’ll see if they enjoy riding, too.
Thomas Affleck
Now that Ryan’s visit has ended, we start the final push before the Annual Rose Viewing. Last summer I planted Thomas Affleck at the end of the Herb Garden in front of the house because the description of the Antique Rose Emporium said they were fragrant and should be planted where that fragrance could be enjoyed often. The rose has done well and I didn’t even realize how many flowers and buds were on the bush until I cleared out the bolted spinach that I planted in front of it – knowing that the spinach would be out before the Rose Viewing. It looks great, but it isn’t fragrant. At least not this year – or so far. I find that the intensity of the fragrance for any rose varies from year to year.
