Partial Plant Sale List

During this school year's courses of study we have been putting Margaret's House through her paces. Students have employed a variety of propagation techniques: division, from seed, transplantation, cuttings.
We will be offering many of our successes for sale next Wednesday and Thursday along with donations from some of our sponsors. What they donate will be posted later. Here's what we have grown:

Sand lovegrass
Mexican feathergrass
Salvia greggi
Heartleaf skullcap
Lyreleaf Sage
Skeleton leaf goldeneye
Mountain Laurel
Roughleaf Dogwood
Mexican bush sage
Mexican buckeye
Brazos Penstemon
Four nerve daisy
Blackfoot daisy
Calylophus
White winecup
Tropical milkweed
Damianita
Moss verbena
Verbena rigida
Lantana horrida
Gregg's mistflower
Various oaks
Assorted cacti

10th Annual Native Plant Sale

Come out and help us celebrate a decade of fundraising for the gardens at Clint Small Middle School.

We'll be featuring native trees, shrubs, grasses, perennials, and cacti most grown by students on campus in Margaret's House. We will have Green Academy t-shirts, too.

This year we will try something totally new. We will be selling during and after the school day on Wednesday, April 4th and Thursday, April 5th. We will start at 8:30 and operate continuously until 6:3o both days.

Our school is located at 4801 Monterey Oaks Blvd. The sale will be in and around Margaret's House which is located on the northwest part of the campus. Look for signs.

Margaret's House is dedicated to local naturalist, Margaret Bamberger, who shared her love and knowledge with dozens of classes from the Oak Hill area. Its mission is to study, propagate, and distribute plants native to this area.

Proceeds from the sale will benefit the native plant studies at Small Middle School. Cash or check only. Thank you.

Thanks for Supporting Margaret's House

Thanks to all who volunteered and shopped at our 2011 Spring Plant Sale. Not only does this support our green efforts around campus, it also achieves the 3 goals of Margaret's House: to study propagate, and distribute native plants in our area.

Margaret Bamberger worked with scores on Small Middle School students on the ranch and at our school. She had a hand (okay, foot) in constructing the greenhouse dedicated in her honor.

Originally the garden at Small was designed to be a Japanese garden inspired by the Tanaguchi Gardens at Zilker Park. Margaret was the chief inspiration and major mentor in persuading me to garden for wildlife focusing on native plants.

Margaret passed away two years ago. Many of her friends and family contributed to the construction of this tribute to Margaret. I want them to know that a couple of hundred middle school students have studied, propagated, and helped distribute native plants.

Sam and Jack's Masterpiece

Whoops! All those student volunteers and I forgot to appoint a photographer.

Luckily, project director Sam Birchall, who himself has worked with dozens of Small students, snapped a few. They were tiling the countertop of one of our work spaces. The mosaic tiles were leftovers from the building original construction.

Sam had Jack figure out the pattern.

A few cuts later and lots of elbow grease later...

...the deed was done.

Sam returned two days later and worked with Sergio to grout the countertops.

At the same time of the plant sale and tiling workshop, Linda Gibeaut led another project. She, along with Mr Brooks, Mr. Rosenberg, a Dad, and several students, mortared up the stone vegetable bed designed by Mrs. Reynold's math students last year. I'll post photos in a future blog.

This post is dedicated to the living memory of Margaret Campbell Bamberger.

Growin' Green: An Intro to Horticulture

GreenTech Elective Profile

Intro to Horticulture will utilize our on campus greenhouse (Margaret's House) as a laboratory for students to learn how to propagate plants. Additionally students will operate our compost production and learn basic soil morphology. We will also assist other classes in our organic vegetable gardens. This one semester class is offered to 7th and 8th graders as a stand alone elective or as part of the green student certification program.

Margaret's House