School goes green with medieval garden

Fourteen pupils at Trinity School of Frederick recently took their lesson outdoors, literally.

The sixth- and seventh-graders created a medieval garden their teacher described as "a beautiful teaching garden É and a beautiful testament to the love they have for their school."

After a month of teaching about Europe in the Middle Ages, humanities teacher Theresa McMullin asked the pupils to choose topics that most interested them so she could delve further.

The pupils unanimously decided to create a medieval day, McMullin said. For that, they needed a medieval garden containing the herbs and flowers people in the Middle Ages used for healing and cooking.

McMullin had a weedy patch in front of the school tilled with compost to prepare the soil for a simple teaching garden.

"I envisioned a place with plots where each of the teachers could all plant according to their units of study," she said. "However, the weather continued to be cold and snowy, and I kept delaying my plans."

Her pupils discussed peasant herb gardens, the manual labor of monks in an abbey and the formal designs of herb gardens in manor houses.

With the promise of good weather, the pupils sprang into action, hoping to complete their garden for Trinity's Earth Day celebration. McMullin asked them to create a garden design. They agreed on a sunburst pattern with lots of lavender and scented plants.

Earth Day was only three days away and the pupils had no idea how much work they were in for, McMullin said. But they "eagerly attacked the project," excited to get their hands on dirt.

"I made the map and the diagram," sixth-grader Alex Clark said. He used household products, including rice for gravel, brown fabric for dirt, and plastic flowers and fake grass to make a small garden replica.

For three days, the pupils worked from 10 a.m. until dismissal at 3:30 p.m.

They dug walkways and trenches, laid a brick edging, evened out the beds, planted rows of boxwoods and hauled pea gravel for paths, McMullin said.

"Many of them had never worked so hard in their lives, and the results were amazing," McMullin said.

Making the garden come to life was hard work, seventh-grader Alec Proakis said.

"One of my friends said we were doing too much physical work and we should to go to PE instead, which didn't make a lot of sense. It's all work, but it was fun," Proakis said.

The project was tiring, seventh-grader Ben Griffin said.

"But the school does a lot of tiring, but interesting things. We had to dig 3 inches down to lay pea gravel, which cost $2 a bag and weighed 50 pounds. Ripping the bags apart with pickaxes was a lot of fun," Griffin said.

The project required teamwork and compromise, Dylan Hightman said.

Paige Clark said the pupils will be able to look at the project and say, "We did that garden.

"I like getting dirty," she said, "but the gravel bags were heavy."

Lexie Thrash, a seventh-grader, summed up their work.

"It's yet another fun project. That's why I love this school. We get to do a lot of fun things. (The garden) will be a peaceful place for everyone. You can come over and pray or do whatever quiet thing you want to do," Thrash said.

Principal Pamela Seale said she has never seen a group of any age work so hard.

"It took them three days. By the last day, they were ready to drop, they were so tired. They are proud, justifiably," she said.

Parents helped with the project, including Diane Houyke, who was in charge of the school's Earth Day celebration. Gardeners Suzanne Mack and Susan Wolfe laid out the children's design idea in the dirt. The Wolfe family donated bricks for the edging, statuary for the center and plants. Teachers and other parents brought plants as well.

The project sparked an exciting Earth Day, McMullin said. The entire school joined together to bring life to the school grounds. The front of the building overflowed with plants and flowers donated by the school community for every grade to take part in the beautification effort.

The pupils created a butterfly garden around the flagpole and a perennial bed along the back of the building. They filled planters near the front entrance and brightened the beds around the school entrances.

"My students arrived tired from their work the day before, but they were energized by all of the positive comments from their schoolmates, parents, and other teachers," McMullin said.

The pupils put the finishing touches on their garden Monday, laying more bricks. They will dedicate the garden to Seale during a weekly chapel service.

(by Ike Wilson, FrederickNews.com - 2 May 2007)