Garden bed by classroom

I just put in a garden bed outside my classroom using cottage stone blocks. Now I'm in the process of digging out all the concrete chunks and construction debris that I've discovered in the soil there. Many small, sharp pieces of metal, so I can't let the kids dig in it yet, and boy do they want to! They had a great time stacking the blocks on the second and third layers. This is against a south facing wall that gets mostly sun, but a bit of shade in the morning. I need ideas for what to plant in it that doesn't need a lot of water over the summer, is of interest in the fall, winter, and spring, and is NOT poisonous. Easy for kids to grow is also a plus. I am thinking 3 small shrubs in the center and perennials, herbs, and bulbs around the edges. Any input greatly appreciated.

That looks marvellous! And the height just right for sitting on and looking. Well done.

Would it be possible to let the children help clear the bed, could you give them some 'work gloves' and seives and let them learn to work carefully removing the debris. (I just googled 'children's gardening gloves' and came up with several sites selling them for a couple £. there must be much cheaper stores/sites in the US (you guys get everything cheaper! so envious!) I think it is so important that children are given situations where they do have to learn to work carefully by using the right equipment and taking their time.

You can't go wrong with children and snowdrops - they have the advantage of being low down for looking into those delightful nodding white heads, and they are early in the year. and far as I know, not toxic.

the other plant that is a thrill for little ones are the delightful ballerina like blossoms on fuschia - and the lurid colours will attract even the most reticent of botantists amongst them. Fully hardy, easy to control the size with pruning. Towards the centre, what about growing some angels fishing rods (dierama pulcherrimum) and use some herbs: thyme, or mint as a ground cover? The children can find out that it isn't just blossom that has scent.

May I make a plea for growing some pumpkins too: they can be grown to cascade over the edge of the bed - jack-be-little will even grow up a trellis. And how wonderful for the children to have pocket pumpkins.

Exciting project. I want to go there.

This may be a bit "out-there" but the banana plant I have planted against the house has its leaves hang over into the daycare next door. The kids love it! It's not poisonous, it grows like crazy despite damage, loves sun and is easy to grow. The ladies who run the daycare want some for around the play areas as they've seen how well it works and even when leaves are ripped off by the kids, it still grows a new one in a few days.

Mauryhillfarm, i don't really know that much about plant material, but you're in good hands with Laurie1 and Growin, as well as many others here. I do want to compliment you on your efforts though! Even now, when i imagine how blank and boxy it must have looked prior to the bed, versus how graceful and full of promise it looks now, it's clear a stunning transformation is underway. Please post photographs of your progress ....

The one thing my vision is sort of gravitating towards is the blank space on the walls flanking the window. Would it be possible/practical to put some hooks in those walls to hang flowering baskets off of as a "final touch?" This may not be a good idea, what with drilling into the building and all, but i thought i'd ask. That window is so inviting, with all the shelving stuffed with things-that-help-little-minds-learn peaking through, and it seems to me it would be nice to highlight it. And it looks like you've built in enough space behind the bed for a walking/watering path.

Just my two coppers ....

Laurie, I'm going into town on Saturday (live on an island, so everything here is more expensive) to look for children's garden gloves and tools. I have some sieves from another project that may work for this. Thanks for that idea. I think I got the worst of the dangerous stuff, like rusted blades from utility knives. I'll definitely do snowdrops. Are those planted as a bulb? Thyme and catmint would be good too. Fuschia may end up being one of the shrubs. My plan is to show the kids pictures of potential plants and have them help choose. The mini pumpkins sound fun to try, though trailing vines might get tromped. I'll think about how might rig up a trellis.

Growin, a banana tree would definitely be unique. How big do those get? I would probably have enough heat for it, as my spot gets pretty warm with heat bouncing off the building. Does it get bananas? I've also thought about the pineapple guava that I bought for my own garden, but can't remember how big it might get either.

Estreya, yes there is a path behind the bed, so kids can access all sides of it. Also, they can sit on the wall there in a cozy little spot to read when the weather warms up. The wall is pretty ugly, but I doubt they'll let me drill in it. maybe an artist in residence project to do a mosaic or something and cement it on?

mauryhillfarm, the banana can grow up to 15' but typically 6-10'. It will produce small bananas late in the season but they are not edible. It's best to protect the plant in winter with a cage, leaves and a tarp. The banana will come back if you don't but it has to regrow its trunk. I'm talking about a Japanese Fibre Banana (Musa basjoo). The only thing that I find as a draw-back is that when you are cutting all the leaves and you get some banana sap on your clothes, it can stain.

The Pineapple guava can get big too - up to 10' but I find it always has a bit of winter die-back no matter where it is. It can be trimmed back regularily. There's also the Chilean Guava you mentioned before which should do fairly well in this spot if given organic/peat soil.

Snowdrops are best planted 'in the green' (blossom past, but leaf still green) and now is exactly the right time to order. Planting in the green means that the bulb gets a really good start (snowdrops can be a little bit temperamental after storage) and will bulk up faster. The other advantage is that the children will be able to see exactly where they have planted.

Full of admiration for the time you are putting in - really pleased that you are going to let them get in on the cleaning up (definately wise to remove the rusty blades first!) But giving up your saturday to shop! You are brillant!

Isn't it a stinker living on an island - merchants in England have been using that wheeze for centuries - oh, yes, we are an island so we can charge more! What a load of tosh.

Growin, I had no idea there was more than one South American 'guava' and I was mistakenly thinking of them as the same thing. I have just looked this up in my Wester Garden Book. What I have is a Feijoa sellowiana, the pineapple guava, not an Ugni molinae, the Chilean guava. All this is assuming my 1988 edition purchased at the used bookstore is scientifically up to date.

Laurie, your island is much much bigger than mine! So funny that the same line gets used. Although, to be fair, the merchants on this island do have to pay ferry fees to get some types of shipments. When I go into town on the mainland, I usually have several errands planned, so the items for my class are not my only mission. I let the kids take turns using my big digging fork today, just to loosen things up. They had a blast, although after about 20 minutes, they all drifted over to the swings and merry-go round. This garden is for me as much as the kids. I could mess around in the dirt while supervising the playground at the same time. Also, I have dedicated it to my dad, who was both a teacher and a gardener, and I get to commune with his spirit.

That is a very cool project on many fronts Mauryhill. How old are these young gardeners again? A swing and a merry-go-round can be awfully tempting magnets.....

Have you considered a framed screen to help get rid of the construction debris? They are very useful for clearing the millions of rocks out of our soil here, along with nails, bolts, bottle tabs (remember those?) and crud that the former owners cast on the ground to keep emerging annually.

I am partial, but I think it would be great to put in some cutting perennials so you could further the beauty of your garden by cutting and making a bouquet for a special "person of the week" or month etc at the school or outside the school. I'd be happy to donate some purple and some lavender asters, daisies and dahlias. And this splendid white artemesia I have that blooms like an astilbe only longer and in sun. Ooooh it's really pretty- about 3.5 ft tall.

Poochella, flowers for cutting is a lovely idea. Your artemesia sounds stunning. I think aster bloom in the fall, so that is a good time for a school garden, to welcome the new children in. Dahlias are dramatic, which kids like. I've never grown them. Ornamental gardening is all a big experiment for me at this point. I'll take you up on your offer, though we'll have to figure out the logistics, Maybe we can meet at a good nursery sometime, or I can pay for you to send them through the mail. I'm not quite ready for plant material yet, may be a week or two before we get the place cleaned up and new compost in. My little gardeners are first graders, 6 and 7 years old, and very enthusiastic. One little girl was carrying a worm around in a little box, and named it Rosepetal.

Ohhhhhhhhh. Love that kid!

Maury, I just found your thread and am just thoroughly warmed by what a wonderful teacher you are!!! Wish our islands were a bit closer - I'd be over there helping you!!! (BTW, if I time it wrong, which I usually do, I end up paying 30 cents more per gallon for gas here on Whidbey than if I make it to the mainland - nasty!!!)

Yep, Tacoma gas is way cheaper than Vashon gas, but too frequently I'm trying to catch a ferry home when I go off Island and don't have time to fill up the tank. Luckily I have had several parent volunteers (and my own family) helping me with this garden. Three dads put down the first course of bricks, making sure they were all level and of matching height on opposite sides of the bed. There was a lot of pounding with rubber mallets to get them into position. I don't think I could have managed that all by myself. My husband hauled bricks and sand, and my son helped me unloaded the bricks off the truck. I'm overcome by this praise. I'm really a normal, ordinary sort of person.
I think Whidbey is a beautiful island. We drove through Whidbey, and across to Port Townsend once to get home rather than go down through Seattle.

That's okay, you can be normal, ordinary and exceptional all at the same time - how cool is that?! Multi-tasking, yes? What women do.

Maury, hope you'll keep us posted on the progress and share more photos. Delightful idea. (BTW, not all teachers are this dedicated so when we find one who is, we get pretty excited - hope you're planning on teaching for many years to come!)

Oh you have the cute kids! Rosepetal is a charming name for a worm.
I sense a little gardener blooming over there!

I think I found a whole volunteered well-rooted plant of the artemesia mentioned. I'll do photos tomorrow and you guys tell me if you think it's one and the same as it's leafing out a bit now. If it is, it will go to school on Vashon Island to study! If it isn't, I still have enough of the main clump to share for such a good cause.

You are lucky to have such help for all the heavy work, Maury. That is what I dread here with our rocks and clay just an inch below the surface. I don't know how the moles manage to burrow so much all over in our 'soil,' but they do.

I finally figured out how to get photos from the camera to the computer. I have previously had my kid do this for me. So here at last are some pictures of our garden with some plants in it. I wish I could post ones of the kids doing the watering and planting, but I can't very well post other people's kids on the internet.

Here's one at the end of the summer with the sunflowers and pumpkins all grown up.

Geeee as I was reading this tread I was thinking This could be fun I can help. Then I got to the end and realised I'm a year late, I feel dumb LOL
To show the pic of the kids taking care of it would of been priceless, to bad you couldn't get parents OK to post them, nice job.

MHF, You messed me up with the date, too. What are the chances you'd post one day shy of a year to the day that you originally started this thread?

On the instant gratification side of things, though, as I wasn't here when it started, it's neat to see the project go from start to all finished all at once.:)

MHF! That was a real treat to see! Thank you - and isn't the shadow in the Sunflower photo just right! Good snap.

Maybe go to colvos creek and see what he has. They have some very cool plants that might like a hot wall That would be differnt. I have heard nice things about Mike and would love to go myself sometime. Also I think Langley fine plants is on Vashon They might have some cool annuals for the kids to grow. How fun I remember growing mold on bread in school.

Oops! I didn't even notice the date I had first posted this. Sorry for the confusion. The weather was much more pleasant last year on the day we built the bed. It took a few more months to dig out all the debris and get the soil and compost in, but that was really the kids' favorite part. They were really impressed the day I brought in the pick-axe to hack apart the 3 foot wide hunk of concrete buried in the middle. I was ready to give up at one point, but every one of my 22 students wanted to pull out a piece that I had broken off, so I had no choice but to keep at it. I put them all in plastic safety goggles so nobody lost an eye to flying concrete chips.
Those sunflowers were HUGE, which was quite impressive while they lasted, but they definitely overshadowed and stunted everything else around them by taking up all the sunshine during the growing season. Some plants didn't make it through the Winter, so I'll have room for more this Spring. Annie, I'm still up for that artemesia we manage to get together sometime. Being on an island does not make networking easy.
The cooperative effort by last year's class was really great, especially for those kids who struggle with lots of other things in school. Now I want to landscape that whole dusty slope, one bed a year, but I haven't yet managed to organize the next step quite yet.

I do hope you will do those sunflowers again, they are just magnificent and look like something that should suddenly come alive and start dancing - the stuff kids dreams are made of!

Heidi, I know Mike since his nursery is across the street from me. I actually went to ask him about small trees that might work there. He suggested Maytenus Boaria or a red flowered horse chestnut. However, the school grounds coordinator nixed me planting a tree so close to the outer wall of the school. I should go back and ask him about smaller things that would survive the heat.

Oh Lucky you to have him by you. I do think the chesnut tree is too big but He has way too many cool things How bout some echiums . Some can grow so fast that it might be fun for the kids to see. The strawberry guava the kids can eat the floers which might be fun. Maybe a musella lasiocarpa. Dwarf hardy banana. Sunflowers are fun. Anything weird or grows fast to keep their attention. Heidi

Funny you should mention the echium. One of the kid's dad's brought one in and we planted it. You can't see it in the picture because it's behind the sunflowers. He said it was a biennial that would put up a tall flower stalk the second year. It is about a foot and a half tall with big fuzzy leaves right now. We also have some dahlias, lavender, a rosemary, and a bunch of smaller things, along with daffodils and some other bulbs, kind of a mish mash of what families brought in and what I found on various nurseries' sale tables, enough so I'd have enough for everybody to plant one or two things, We raised the sunflowers, pumpkins, and calendula from seed. The calendula has been blooming right through the Winter. We saved the sunflower seeds to plant again,ate some for snacks, and every kid took some home as well. I'll definitely do them again

That had to be fun, I said something to my Grandniece last year about starting a garden area for her and I forgot about saying it, last week when I was doing some WS on some seeds, She said " When are we going to start my garden" I was totally put of gard, I didn't think she even remembered. She is 5 now. So now Aunties got to get a plan going.

Tilly, how wonderful that you have a grandniece to introduce to the marvels of growing things in her very own garden spot! If she wants to try giant sunflowers, I've got some seeds for her.
Heidi, Mike is a really nice guy, and very knowledgeable. You sound like you would be kindred spirits in the world of plant propagation and garden design.
I decided I could post these 2 pictures with my students, since you can't really see their faces clearly in these frames.

Here we are discussing potential planting spots and digging in compost.

My friends always have several Echiums in their back yard in Ballard from seeds from the year beforel. What an incredible and dramatic plant. They get 12-15 feet high with the blossoms at the top. And the bees and birds just didn't leave them alone.

Some are toxic, though.

Good to know I didn't know they were toxic. I have trouble over wintering them. I am pretty cold up here. One year I did protect them and got them to bloom. Heidi

Pixy is the echium queen, she built little tepees for hers.

Maury, love the pics, what fun to enjoy that, and yes I would love for Clowy to have some of those seeds and I can show her your pics and where they came from, and she would injoy seeing the other kids in action.
Getting Excited.

Heidi - don't know whether they're all toxic or how toxic they are - but have read that some are . . .

I have babies for sale next year . I think they are pretty cool.

MHF - love the pictures of the gardeners at work. What a brillant setting for a school! Lucky kids!

Heidi, I think they will sell like hotcakes if people can see a mature one. It's hard to describe the drama of them. My friends did that, but I didn't get it until I actually saw theirs in bloom.

Just found this thread! I can provide a couple more echium for you, maybe a different species, if mine continue to do well until spring. I have some in the ground doing fine (with their little teepees :), and I put some in the greenhouse just in case. I don't think i have room for a field of echium. I would not worry too much about kids eating echium. The leaves are not at all the kind anyone would want to put in their mouths. They are very hairy, almost sharp, to the touch. I actually wear gloves to handle mine because they are uncomfortable to handle.

But what is a child's garden without carnivorous plants? How about a small sunken bog along the edge? They are extremely easy, the plants are hardy if you get the right kinds. I can give you a few because mine are outgrowing the bog. They have a cool flowers, plus the educational benefit is enormous. The only thing you would have to be aware of is that they need to be watered with distilled water or with rainwater, and I can show you a good soilless mixture to use. Mineral content over 100ppm in the water will kill them slowly but surely. And they do not like fertile ground. They prefer to get their fertilizer through bugs. If you are interested, I can show you how I did mine when you are here. Very, very easy.
Acually, I love Heidi's bog. I need to have a bigger one, and I'm thinking one closer to her size would be good. It's kind of another plant addiction. I have some 'special' carnivorous plants. I also have some you can grow inside in the classroom. Again, very, very easy. And they bloom all the time if they get enough light. I have Pinguicula and Drosera, a couple of kinds. Several kinds of Pings. Their bloom looks like little violets.

you could put hummingbird plants in that garden since it's right outside the window. But that could be a complete distraction!

Pix and Heidi - Can you create a bog - or at least marshy area? I mean, it dries up in the summer, doesn't it?