Kent ISD — Ian Warnock led a group of teens around the Lena Meijer Children’s Garden, pointing out which plants needed to be pulled from the beds and which could stay.
“The hostas can be pulled, and I will get some containers that we can put them in,” said Warnock, senior lead horticulturist at the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. “Keep the dark side of the moon astilbes and the coral bells.”
With those instructions, the five students from the Kent Career Tech Center’s agriscience program got to work digging up annuals and preparing the beds for the gardens’ fall display of chrysanthemums.
For 28 years, Tech Center students have been coming to the gardens to help with the seasonal changes.
Instructor Heather Pratt said work there gives students the opportunity to apply the skills they are learning, from plant identification to care, while alongside those in the profession.
“It’s a great connection,” Pratt said.
While the students get a behind-the-scenes look working in a public garden, Warnock said, it’s “Many hands make light work” at the 158-acre campus.
“When we have big change-overs like we do in the spring and then in fall, it’s just great to have the students here, as they know what they are looking for and are focused on the task at hand,” he said.
‘It’s about getting your hands dirty’
For the recent seasonal swap, Tech Center students were split into two groups: One worked on the planting and the other focused on plant identification. The 20 students then broke into groups of five and headed to different locations in the gardens.
“It’s about getting your hands dirty,” said Caledonia senior Aydin Weyer, whose group was working in the children’s garden. “It is giving us hands-on experience, and I am learning what the different plants are and how to work with them.”
Aydin, who noted this is his second year with the agriscience program, said his dream job is to work as a veterinarian at Disney’s Animal Kingdom.
“The (agriscience) program has us working with both animals and plants, which has really helped me to decide what I want to do in a future career,” he said.
Cedar Springs junior Shelly Zimmerman said she has been learning a lot about the different plants, such as what makes them unique and which families they belong to. Shelly said that has made it easier to determine which plants need to be removed and which stay in the garden beds.
Plant ID Up Close
In the Meijer Gardens parking lot, a group tasked to work on plant identification stopped at the parking lot islands with plants.
“This is not a coral bell,” said instructor Jennifer Woods as she pointed to a plant with brown leaves and purple flowers. “It is an astilbe … This particular one is called the ‘dark side of the moon.’”
After discussing the plant’s height, width, color, flower and leaf structure, a sample was collected for reference.
First-year agriscience students are required to learn 100 different plants, flowering annuals, trees and evergreens, Woods said, and second-year students learn an additional 200 plants. They use that knowledge to create a landscaping project at the end of the year.
Learning both the common and scientific plant names has helped Thornapple Kellogg senior Kaymn Hiemstra recognize plants in her community, she said.
Kaymn was not the only one who discovered they were much more aware of the plants around them.
“Since having been in this class I find myself taking a walk and saying ‘Oh, there is a Stella d’oro daylily’ and ‘Here’s Japanese forest grass,” said Rockford junior Adison Sturm, who plans to work in an environmental field such as conservation. “It is because we are learning so much about the plants, how the flowers bloom, that it makes it fun to identify them.”
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