Part of the newsletter series, “What can PHHI do for you?”

One of our favorite ways to help schools with their garden education effort is to assist them with the coordination of a garden classroom build. Whether it’s starting from scratch and consulting on the best location given the site layout or renovating an existing garden area with new features, we can help. We’ve assisted with more than 30 garden builds across North Carolina. 

There are a lot of pieces to a garden build, but it all starts with a simple question, “Why?” Why do you and your school want a garden? Determining the answer to this question is what allows you to go forward with purpose and confidence in planning and building a garden classroom.

Once a school has decided to go ahead with building a garden classroom, we are available to help with any or every step of the process. We love to work with a garden team and suggest that students are involved in the process as well. A sense of ownership of the garden–by the students, teachers, administrators, and school community– is an important part of the garden being successfully sustained for years to come. Our work with the school is more as a (free) consultant role. We will suggest how to ensure that critical factors, like sunlight, proximity to buildings and water access, are not overlooked, but will lean on school garden leaders for the ultimate decisions on design, layout and features. There is not a one-size-fits-all school garden. There may be common elements, but every garden is unique.

Procuring resources to construct the garden can be one of the more difficult parts of the process and we do our best to help schools secure those financial and in-kind resources to get the job done, even if it is determined that it will work best to work in phases. All the planning culminates in Build Day. We can help coordinate the build and supply some small power tools. This is a day that students, regardless of age, should have a chance to be involved, whether they are helping to build raised beds or shoveling soil. We love seeing 1st graders use a drill, with supervision, to install screws in boards to make the walls of the beds. This responsibility-demanding task, among others, helps them to build confidence in their abilities.

We would love to help you, or someone you know, establish a garden classroom at a school. Please reach out to us if you’d like to discuss what this collaboration might look like at your school.