Gardens evolve. All gardens, school or otherwise, season to season, year to year, they grow, they change, and with the proper care, they prosper. The “Learning Garden” at Venice High School has been evolving and prospering for more than 15 years.
Back in 1995 horticulture/landscape teacher Diane Pollock “inherited” a weed-ridden one acre property that was more home to feral cats and vagrants than it was to living plants. In collaboration with Garden Master David King and numerous community volunteers they have created one of the show-piece school gardens in America.
Today, the students are enriched by the various gardens that surround them. There’s a Chinese Herb and Medicinal Plant Garden, a Mediterranean Garden, a Fruit Orchard, a Rose Demonstration Garden, a Grape Arbor, and the U.C.L.A. Ornamental Garden.
A California native plant section has been lovingly created and cared for by Christine Walker.
Agricultural plots are tended to for organic vegetables. Compost piles teach sustainability.
One exciting recent development is the Culinary Arts and Sustainable Agriculture Academy (CASAA) created by teacher Tina Gruen. This new venture takes the garden a giant step forward by developing a complete “farm to fork” concept. Students not only grow their food, but are taught how to prepare it as well. The entire process from seed to table can now be experienced first hand.
The Learning Garden’s famous potuck lunches on Fridays just got a whole lot tastier!
Thank you for your article. The Learning Garden’s creation and continuance stems from an entire community of experiences: I no more ‘created’ The Learning Garden than I was born on the Moon. The countless hours put in by many trump all I have done.
david
http://tlgdaily.blogspot.com/2009/10/who-really-built-learning-garden.html
This is fantastic!!!! I wish we had the climate to keep something like this going in DE all year round….hopefully we can create something similar for spring fall and summer in our schools. Very inspiring.