Susan Flanagan just happened to be sitting at the Dallas Master Gardeners help desk when a call came from a teacher at Robert E. Lee Elementary. “She wanted to put some plants in the inner courtyard, which looked like a prison courtyard,” Flanagan says. “She said it, and when I came out, I said it, too. It was really bare and grim looking.” But that was a year and a half ago. Since then Flanagan and the staff and students have transformed the garden so much that the Texas Master Gardener Association recently awarded Dallas County first place for the project. It was designed as a bird and butterfly “water-wise” garden with plants that can withstand the Texas drought. Before the project, “the beds had never been worked. They were like rock,” Flanagan says, but now students are finding worms — a sign of good soil. She’s at the school working outdoors with them at least once a week, and all of the students have pitched in to help, especially Betty Nance’s second-graders, who weeded the entire garden. “It’s just kind-of wonderful, their delight in everything,” Flanagan says of the Lee students.
Robert E. Lee is looking for neighborhood volunteers to continue helping their garden grow. For information, contact garden coordinator Angela Brown at 972.749.7400.
