Not All Trash is Bad

 May 11, 2022



I, once again, had the opportunity and pleasure to head to the Bradford Wood Reserve and GET to hang out with the Girl Scouts. This was a small troop of fourth graders full of energy and excitement to be outside on one of the first beautiful days of the season! These girls were working on their Gardener Badge. They needed to visit a garden. learn about native plants and then take part in making the garden grow which brings me to the name of this tableaux. "Not all trash is bad... Sometimes you have to make a mess before you can make something beautiful". This is true with everything... we left nothing behind, but we definitely made a mess with all our gardening supplies and plants in our short visit.


The reserve volunteers are heading into their busy season by getting the reserve ready for spring, so it was a win-win for the Girl Scouts and the reserve with preparing beds and planting some Pennsylvania native
plants. They also learned a lot along the way about gardening. 

One of the cool things the volunteers are doing is creating beds for native wildflower gardens (in a natural way) by killing the grass and weeds with tarps. Even though this takes longer, it is natural and spares you all the back breaking work of pulling up well rooted grass and weeds... I'm all in!


The girls first took a short visit around the reserve. The coolest part was their enthusiasm with pulling up one of Pennsylvania's most evasive weeds, Garlic Mustard. Although this weed has a cute little flower, it chokes out plants and needs to be taken out of any garden. The reserve volunteer stressed that any time they see it, they should take it out (which they did with gusto)!



We worked with two established areas: one in partial shade and the other in full sun. The girls first learned about Pennsylvania native plants and found out we are in Zone 6. They were given the plants, determined which bed they went in, learned how to properly plant them, and they got to work.



In between activities, some of the girls took an opportunity to visit (my personal favorite part of the reserve) the catch and release pond. In addition to making the reserve a perfect place to be an official Monarch Waystation, it is just beautiful.


In true Bradford Woods Reserve fashion, the girls ended their visit around the awesome fire pit with s'mores and smiles. As mentioned in my previous post, if you want to use the fire pit, you do need a permit from the borough, so please contact the reserve if you need help with planning a visit.





The girls left the reserve with marshmallow smiles, native plants and wildflower seeds to plant at home, and their Gardner Badge (I was impressed they got it on the spot!). 




I got some great shots of the reserve waking up from its long winter nap, but I still want to come back when everything begins to bloom!


Please see my previous post to learn more about the reserve and read about my first visit (didn't want to seem redundant here!). 

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