1999- Big time thanks to the following people who kept our school garden alive the first drought plagued summer by signing on to water for a week and planted and things like that!

  • the Angeloni family
  • the Au Yeung family
  • the Bouley family
  • the Craib family
  • the Carlyon family
  • the Ehrlich family
  • the Hansen family
  • the Logan family
  • the McAuliffe family
  • the Stafford/Mathewson family

2000 - By volunteering to water this summer if the rains didn't keep up with the garden's needs, these families kept the plants happy and thriving! Hiding behind that luxuriant crop of native plants (weeds) are healthy, handsome plantings.

Many thanks to these families:

Ehrlich, Hansen, Musto, O'Connell, Hess, Stafford, Corcoran, Balser, and Murray

Did anyone get left off the list?
Be sure to let us know!!!!!!

2001 -

  • the Hansen family
  • the McAuliffe family
  • the Poland-Brown family
  • the Larson family
  • the Sullivan family
  • the Juergen family
  • the Burgess family
  • the Philbrick family
  • the Hess family

Background Information

Why a garden?

History...how it came about; first steps to make it real

brainstorming sketches
by the Waddell teachers and parents

sketches by 4th graders for amazing birdfeeders

Short interview with Richard Grandmont, principal of Waddell until 1999/2000 (and prime mover and shaker of the garden), by students asking about the garden...part of the December 1998 Eco-Talk Newsletter.

original planting plan for the garden....

See what we did for the inauguration of the garden!

The mayor was there, too! Check out the beautiful cake Pam Philbrick made and decorated!!!!

Construction of the Garden

Much of the garden had to be built after school let out for the summer. Money that needed to be spent or it was lost and other factors meant we just had to do it during the worst heat wave I have experienced in New England and without a lot of organized help. (I grow faint at the memory.)

first landscaping steps after ripping up the old asphalt play yard: the paths

rock walls being built by Steve Doll of
Doll's Accent Landscaping and his helper

major planting in late June, early July 1999; awful soil, awful heat, awful drought, awful gnats