Learning to Grow
Emma Scott Garden Club teaches Midland students gardening skills
Submitted photos Emma Scott Garden Club member Adam Kramer gives instruction to a Midland Elementary School student on how to mulch up under plants on Monday. The ESGC visited the school and helped students get two butterfly gardens ready for the summer.
A group of Midland Elementary School students make their way around one of the school’s two butterfly gardens on Monday. The Emma Scott Garden Club was on hand to help prepare the gardens for the summer.
Submitted photos Emma Scott Garden Club member Adam Kramer gives instruction to a Midland Elementary School student on how to mulch up under plants on Monday. The ESGC visited the school and helped students get two butterfly gardens ready for the summer.
A group of Midland Elementary School students make their way around one of the school’s two butterfly gardens on Monday. The Emma Scott Garden Club was on hand to help prepare the gardens for the summer.
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ELKINS -- Midland Elementary School students spent part of Monday outdoors learning valuable gardening skills from members of the Emma Scott Garden Club.
Back in 2020, the ESGC constructed a pair of butterfly gardens at the school for students to take care of and manage throughout the year. The gardens have various milkweed and other native plants that are essential to their success.
"We work with the Emma Scott Garden Club to keep those gardens going throughout the year," said Leah Shepler, a third-grade teacher at Midland. "In the fall we weed out the gardens to get them ready for the winter. Then in the spring we weed them again and put mulch down to get them ready for the summer ... The gardens were built to be pollinator gardens and the kids really enjoy going outside to work on them."
Shepler's class was joined by Kim Smith's fourth-grade class and ESGC members Linda Shomo, Charles Shomo, Adam Kramer, Sarah Wamsley and Dr. Tom Benz. The students were taught the proper way to mulch the gardens and the difference between weeds and native plants.
"Some of the students talked to the plants as much as they mulched," Shomo said. "The most important thing is that they learned valuable gardening skills that will help them as they grow and someday tend to their own gardens. The weather was great and it was a great day to be outside. We had a really good time working with the students. "
Shomo said that the ESGC is always willing to teach and work with young people so that they develop an interest in gardening. The ESGC hosted its annual plant sale this past weekend at the Randolph County Arts Center. The event is the organization's biggest fundraiser of the year and money taken in helps with projects like the Midland butterfly gardens.
The Emma Scott Garden Club is currently accepting new members. For more information call 703-861-9351 or visit the organization's Facebook page.