Flower Blooming Season

Last Friday,June 20, as usual, Dave, and some students came to help in the garden. I  saw these beautiful Daylilies on that day. Before that, I had only white lilies in my mind and I also considered lilies to represent something pure like the color white. But this amazing orange color as you see in the photo is just right for the passion of summer. All I want on this sunny summer afternoon is to be sitting down in a quiet garden with a cup of tea and to be appreciating these special flowers. They are different from my thoughts before, and they look very pleasant with the sunshine. I was thinking that must be the sun that gave them such great color.

By the way, lilies are not only ones worth noticing! These blueberries are almost ready. See the changing colors from green to purple? It is always amazing to see how plants are growing. They may not change during the five minutes that you  are staring at them,  but check in after a week! You will be surprised  how much they did grow!

And feel free to come! We all will be there every Fridays 2- 4 pm. Actually in this garden, you are welcome anytime to visit!

Enjoy the great summer!

Plants and Work Parties

The Learning Garden is planning a plant sale for Friday April 5^th and needs donations of plastic pots of all sizes, large and small.  We also would appreciate any donations of plants flowering perennials, day lily, strawberry plants, raspberry canes, bulbs etc. Please drop plants by the Learning Garden located to the North of the dinning hall. Put them next to the shed. 

For the rest of the semester you will find us working from 12 to 2 every Wednesday. Please feel free to join us. 

With questions, contact our garden manager Lynn at her SMU email lynn.villella@...

Chinese Medicinal Plants in the Garden

Last Friday in the garden - Dr. Louise Kaplan, director of SMU's new nursing program, brought visiting students from Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine to plant medicinal herbs and shrubs in the SMU's Learning Garden.

from Dr. Jie, Xu (Daisy) list of medicinal plants for the garden

Thanks to visiting professor Dr. Jie, Xu (Daisy) who compiled the list of medicinal plants for us to get and to  all of the students who volunteered to go to the market, find the starts and to plant our first Chinese medicinal herbs for future classes to enjoy.

Students from Shanghai University. Left to right in front: Chen Luhua (Pearl), Zhu Liangbo (Cream), Huang Zhiwei (Simple), Zhang Zhuhui(Vicky),Chen Lin (Lin), and Zhao Xiyue (CiCi). Left-far back: Xie Yingfang (Catherine) and Shen Dan (Ivy)  Mr. Lee, the chaperone, is the farthest back.

 SMU's ESL students are currently working on information cards to go with the plants!

Shanghai student, Zhang Zhuhui (Vicky), watering the Ginkgo after planting

Ginkgo (pictured above) is an especially good medicine for a university garden as it helps with memory and concentration!

June Work Party

A lot got done in the garden during the work party. New potatoes dug up, strawberries and currants tasted, herbs picked, weeds plucked, plants planted and watered. Keep your eye out for our next workshop on setting up a micro-drip system in the garden!

tasting strawberries

kids are welcome!

oregano

garlic!

Thank you David Suter for taking the photographs.

Winter Garden

students in First Year Seminar grafted an apple tree this winter

Garlic started sprouting. Can you spot what else was hiding in the garden bed?

Garden Update...

There has been a lot of gardening going on. As you can see from all the pictures that are posted on here we have been busy. With all the help from the volunteers we got this garden up and running. We have many different vegetables growing and fruit. One plant just grew the first berry over the weekend and I got the joy of eating it, but not before I took a picture of the raspberry. They seem to be having a hard time growing right now but after seeing that one berry I have faith that those raspberries will grow.

Another update is that we are now having deer or some other kind of animal come up to the garden and they seem to like the carrots and strawberries because that is the only bed that seems to have their foot prints. Looks like we are going to be needing to build a fence to keep them out. That is going to be the next project to come.