Dundee School Children's Garden An Ongoing Tradition

Originally prepared by James Ed. Ducey. September 2002 and February 2003. Updated April 2007.

In the early 1990s, the Dundee School PTA formed a committee called Operation Greenthumb to address the problem of improving the school¹s lawn. After the project was finished, the committee became defunct. In 1998, however, the committee was revived in order to improve the landscaping on the schoolgrounds. At the time, the only plants on the grounds, other than trees, were four kinds of shrubs - St. John¹s wort, pink spirea, yew, and burning bush - as well as a lot of weedy grass.

The initial members of the committee were Debbie Galusha, Robyn Hubbard, and Sarah Newman. Debbie Galusha wrote up a funding request tying the proposed landscaping to the student curriculum. In the fall of 1998, the Omaha Schools Foundation granted Dundee School PTA $2300 for the project. That same year, the Dundee PTA granted $5000 for the landscaping, and two anonymous donations of $500 each were received.

The first step taken was to offer the design problem to the students in a horticulture class run by Steve Rodie at UNO. A half dozen finished designs were presented to Dundee showing a variety of solutions to the school¹s landscaping needs.

In the summer of 1999, Sarah Newman, who has a degree in botany and an M.L.A. in landscape architecture, drew up a final design for the grounds. The multi-story Dundee school building added a unique aspect to the landscape design. "Its elevation above the gardens creates a beautiful effect," said Newman. The color of the exterior stone has an influence on plant selection.

That fall the first planting project was undertaken. Parents dug up the two triangle beds along the entrance walk. The first graders planted yellow daffodils and blue scilla along the edges of the triangle beds. "When those flowers came up the next spring, everyone took notice," said Newman. "People got really excited over the idea of a school garden."

During the winter months, Sarah Newman did extensive Internet research on school gardening, compiling a booklet of information, poems, and websites for the teachers¹ use. One of the things learned was the importance of having the landscaping plans remain fluid, so that teachers and students could alter the gardens as needed to meet their needs. "As we worked on the program, we realized that the most important thing was just to create prepared plant beds. Their use could be changed yearly as needed," said Newman. Another goal from the start, "we wanted to introduce as much variety of plant material as possible for kids to have contact with," said Newman.

The following spring, in April, 2000, an Arbor Day celebration was held. Historic trees from the American Forests organization were obtained and each grade planted a tree in a ceremony their teachers devised. The trees were as follows:

• Kindergarten - Johnny Appleseed¹s last living apple tree
• First Grade - Overcup oak from Abraham Lincoln¹s boyhood home
• Second Grade - Tulip tree from George Washington¹s Mount Vernon
• Third Grade - Sycamore tree whose parent had flown on Apollo
• Fourth Grade - Pecan tree trail marker used by the Native Americans
• Fifth Grade - Japanese tree-lilac from Independence Hall
• Sixth Grade - Green ash from George Washington Carver¹s boyhood home

Newman surveyed the area around the school and developed a neighborhood map of trees for the teachers¹ use (see attached). After school on Arbor Day, a fair was held for students and their families celebrating trees with crafts, games, videos, tree tours, and drawings.

In April, 2000, Sarah Newman and Robyn Hubbard started an after-school Garden Club. Nearly fifty students out of the school population of 500 signed up, along with fourteen parent volunteers. Many projects were carried out, including planting a Pizza Garden, a vine teepee, and flowers in the triangle beds. The second grade began the Butterfly Garden in the southeast corner of the schoolgrounds. During the summer, teachers and parents dug up an additional blacktop bed and planted it with gourds and a Miniature Vegetables Garden.

Vandals hit hard the first summer. All of the historic trees except the green ash and tree-lilac were destroyed. Additional damage was done to the gourds and fences. As the years have gone by, though, the incidence of vandalism has declined.

In the fall of 2000, an Eagle Scout candidate, Brett Kennedy, whose mother, Julie, teaches at the school, organized a group of boy scouts to dig the gravel out of the tiewall, making it suitable for planting. The Garden Club filled the beds with compost and earthworms to prepare it for spring planting.

Garden Club continued, meeting for 4-5 week sessions in the fall, the winter, and the spring of 2000-2001. The students planted bulbs in the Shade Garden in the fall and flowers in the triangle beds in the spring. The third grade conducted a unit on herbs, growing a number of herbs in window boxes on their windowsills over the winter which they transplanted to the tiewall in the spring. The third grade also planted a Flower Garden and a Food Origins Garden in the spring. Mrs. Carlton¹s fifth grade class planted dye plants in the tiewall for class projects in the fall. The first grade planted a Rainbow Garden on the blacktop. The second grade added to their Butterfly Garden and planted gourds along the tiewall. The gardens that season contained 115 different varieties of plants.

For Arbor Day, 2001, grades did individual classroom projects. An after-school fair was held again. The National Arbor Day Foundation that year was conducting a nationwide election of a national tree. Official election booths were obtained from the Douglas County Election Commissioner and set up in the gym. A Theodore Roosevelt impersonator (David Harding) gave a speech and then asked for nominations for the national tree. Students offered up the list, and then they and their parents voted their choices. The Dundee tally chose the redwood, with the oak a close second (the oak won nationally). The results were sent to the National Arbor Day Foundation.

In the summer of 2001, Sarah Newman visited the Michigan State University 4-H Children¹s Garden in East Lansing, Michigan. The creativity seen there inspired her to redesign the Dundee School gardens to include more whimsy for the children. The new design added a Maze leading to a Secret Garden, an Orchard and a Berry Patch. "The effort to date had been primarily to create curriculum tie-ins with the gardens - something that ultimately was up to the teachers," said Newman. "It was felt that, as parents, the goals should also include adding beauty and opportunities for imaginative play for the students during recess, hopefully creating an emotional bond with nature that might last a child¹s lifetime."

One thing Newman learned at the National Youth Gardening Conference in Michigan was that there is a greater level of participation among the teachers at Dundee than at most other schools with youth gardening. "At this time, nearly all the teachers at the school are involved with the plants through curriculum tie-ins," she said. "Most programs only involve a couple of classrooms at a school."

The Dundee School gardens received a 2002 Youth Garden Award from the National Gardening Association, which included $500 worth of gardening equipment, seeds, tools and books.

In February 2002, Operation Greenthumb received a $7500 grant from the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum for further development of the gardens. The monies were used to put in a retaining wall and steps in the Butterfly Garden, the beginnings of a Secret Garden in the northeast corner of the grounds, the plumbing for a sprinkler system, and the development of a new garden called The Know-Your-Neighborhood Garden. The principal, Virginia Bowers, obtained an additional $7500 for laying a sprinkler system on the south side of the school. Robyn Hubbard oversaw the process of installing the sprinkler system.

The Know-Your-Neighborhood Garden was the focus of garden development in 2002. The second grade does an annual tour of local businesses every year as part of their curriculum. The idea was put forward to develop a garden with mini-gardens whose themes tied in with businesses (see attached). Local businesses were approached to serve as sponsors of their theme gardens. The results were as follows:

• Carl S. Baum's Druggists - Nature¹s Medicine Cabinet Garden
• Great Harvest Bread Co. - Cereal Bowl Garden
• Edward Jones Investments - Money Garden
• Dundee Florist - Flower Bed Garden
• Goldberg's II - Edible Flowers Garden
• Pizza Rustica - Pizza Garden
• Dundee Theater - Performing Plants Garden
• Lady Caroline's British Tea Shop - English Tea Garden
• Homer¹s Tapes and Records - Rock Garden
• Dundee Hardware, Alan & Marcia Baer Foundation and Indian Creek Nursery - general support

For the 2002 growing season, the students planted the following gardens:

• Kindergarten - Peter Rabbit Garden
• First Grade - Wizard of Oz Garden and Fairy Garden
• Second Grade - Know-Your-Neighborhood Garden
• Third Grade - "The Lost Flower Children" Flower Garden
• Fourth Grade - Vine Teepee and Secret Garden
• Fifth Grade - Native American Garden and Plant-a-Row-for-the-Hungry Tiewall Garden
• ESL - Mexican Foods Garden and Asian Foods Garden
• Special Education - Child's Fantasy Garden

By the end of the 2002 planting season, the Dundee School Children¹s Garden had 27 individual plant beds, organized into 12 theme gardens, containing over 230 different varieties of plants.

One of the purposes of the gardening program is for children to witness the miracle of sowing a seed and following the result. When the children return to school in the fall, "they are often very surprised at the change from the view in spring," said Newman. "The big, ugly canna bulbs are now tall colorful plants. The kids can harvest vegetables when they return to school in August. The children¹s excitement gets their parents excited and that furthers interest in the effort." A twice-a-year newsletter, News From the Garden, is sent home with the students, telling of the latest garden news and tidbits.

"The community's interest and awareness of the flora at Dundee School is ever-increasing," said Newman who is also the chairperson of the beautification committee of the Dundee Memorial Park Association. She has kept the community informed on the gardens through the association newsletter. The gardens are featured on a mapped walking tour of the neighborhood developed by the association in 2002.

In December 2002, the Dundee School Children¹s Garden received another grant of $7000 from the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum to continue development of the gardens. Plans are to use the monies for development of the north side--a bird habitat, a pond, a maze, and completion of the Secret Garden.

Wildlife seen in the gardens to date has included cottontail rabbits, gray squirrels, American goldfinches, house finches, black-capped chickadees, northern cardinals, English sparrows, crows, mice, and a deer. Once the Bird Habitat and Pond are developed, plans include adding screech owl and woodpecker nesting boxes as well as feeding stations.

A nature playground, the latest idea, would combine natural play elements--hollow logs, rocks, sand--with nature education--a fossil dig, a weather station, geologic elements, cast animal tracks. "The idea is to bring together as much of the benefits of Fontenelle Forest, the Lauritzen Gardens, the Children's Museum, and Vala's Pumpkin Patch as we can to an elementary school¹s grounds where children have the chance to interact daily with the natural world rather than take a once-a-year field trip," says Newman.

The Centennial Celebration of Dundee Elementary School will take place in May, 2004. A garden plan was to develop the Centennial Labyrinth on the north side of the gym. A brick path was laid with inscribed bricks, paid by donations, with the names and dates of attendance of students, teachers, principals, and staff, would lead from present-day students back through the years to the center of the labyrinth with the names of the original students and teachers of Dundee Elementary School.

Most of the school grounds plans were completed by the time of the Centennial Celebration -- the orchard, the berry patch, the prairie, a nature playground on the north side, and the front gardens. "The alumni were amazed and excited at the changes in the schoolgrounds," says Newman. She calls the setting "the Velista Leist Bird Garden, after her second grade teacher at Dundee who was an avid birder and member of some Omaha Bird Club back in the 1960s -- and who fed my love of birds."

The centennial display was a pinnacle for all the hard work of the people involved with getting the garden started and created. And the efforts continue with more plantings and efforts to attract urban birds.

“A variety of shrubs that bear fruit that birds like for 10 months of the year were underplanted on the north side of the school building,” Newman said. “Then we put in a lot of bird feeders, bird houses and winter roosting house. There is a woodpecker nesting box, a screech owl nesting box (a screech owl has lived across the street every summer and I'd hoped to entice it over to the schoolgrounds), a house wren nesting box (no success in 2006). The winter roost box is like a birdhouse but the opening is low in the box. Inside there are numerous perches. The idea is that birds can use it as a protected place of shelter during harsh winter weather."

Other features of the garden at a bird bath, an oriole feeder, and several types of other birdfeeders, Newman said. Kids of one of the fifth grade classrooms love the task of filling the feeders. They have been visited by chickadees, juncos, house sparrows, robins, cardinals, goldfinches, house finches, downy woodpeckers, starlings and blackbirds.

The birdhouses and feeders were bought through a grant from the Missouri Valley/Papio Creek Natural Resource District.