Plant projects take off at two schools thanks to a little ‘green’ from horticultural society

FERGUS – Students in the plant clubs at Victoria Terrace Public School and St. Joseph Catholic School have benefitted from a $500 grant from the Fergus and District Horticultural Society.

The society offers $500 grants annually to schools in Fergus who make a solid pitch for equipment that will help students learn more or have more success with their plant projects. From those applications the society chooses two projects to fund.

Both schools purchased movable garden carts.

The cart at Victoria Terrace has plastic sides and a plant light, so it becomes a greenhouse on wheels.

Kim Gordon, teacher librarian at the school, stated in an email the kindergarten students planted marigolds for Mother’s Day to great success.

Then the grade 6 class wheeled the cart into their room and grew pea plants, observing that the greenhouse kept the plants moist and the lights helped accelerate plant growth.

“In the fall, my plan is to use it to plant some lettuce and herbs that we could have producing all winter long,” Gordon said.

Students in the plant club at St. Joe’s were really excited with their cart, which  also features grow lights.

“Before we had a nutri-tower but it could only hold 32 plants,” plant club supervisor Julie Black said in an interview.

She said the plant club was growing flowers and house plants and was to have a plant sale before the end of the school year, “to make it sustainable,” she said. “Everybody notices this.”

Some of the students in the club said they became interested in gardening thanks to their extended families, many of whom have their own vegetable gardens.

A class trip to Wellington County’s Green Legacy program clinched the deal for the others.

Payton said the light tower really helped her understand the light requirements of plants.

“I learned that UV light can make plants grow and not just the sun,” Kyla agreed.

“It helped me learn how to plant my own garden,” added Scarlet. “My dad likes planting but he’s not good at it. Now I can help him grow and keep the plants alive.”

They rhymed off their favourite plants – morning glory, and all sorts of vegetables. They had tried different propagating methods and recorded their discoveries. 

Some seeds can get started in damp paper towels; others will form roots in a cup of water; while others really need to get started in soil.

Black said the club and the other teacher/plant club supervisors are already planning how to make the most of the light stand next school year.

“We’re so thankful to the Fergus Horticultural Society for the grant,” Black said.

The society sends a letter to the six elementary and two high schools in town in the fall soliciting proposals. The deadline is mid-December and the two $500 awards are given out early in the new year. The grants are intended “to support the school’s environmental and/or horticultural projects as a way to encourage the students’ enthusiasm and interest in gardening,” horticultural society officials stated in a press release.

Staff connected to horticultural or environmental projects at their school should keep their eyes peeled for the society’s letter, they said.