Video: See the fun and learning at the Ultimate Schoolyard Garden

The Catawba River District and five partner organizations have coordinated the creation of the Ultimate Schoolyard Garden display at the Southern Spring Home and Garden Show, taking place last weekend and this coming weekend at the Park Expo Center on Independence Boulevard.
The Ultimate Schoolyard Garden features a whopping 18 separate displays within a single 30-by-30-foot exhibit space. Learn about:

• Ozone gardens
• International gardens
• Aquaponics (where fish AND plants share nutrients and water)
• Incorporating bees, goats and chickens into your school's natural area. Rain barrels
• composting
• Inviting wildlife into your outdoor garden area.

Henry Owen with Friendship Gardens put together this video tour of our exhibit. We hope you enjoy it.
Even better, we hope you go to the show, which runs Friday-Sunday at the Park Expo Center on Independence Boulevard. There's nothing like walking through the exhibit and seeing all of this in person!

Show details

See the Ultimate Schoolyard Garden Feb. 28-March 2 at the Southern Spring Home and Garden Show. CLICK for details of the show.

Ultimate Schoolyard Garden is open for visitors!

Visitors line up for aquaponics display

The Southern Spring Home and Garden Show opened on Frday, and visitors were soon streaming through our Ultimate Schoolyard Garden display – checking out the oak-pallet construction, talking with Mecklenburg Beekeeper Association members and watching the tilapia swimming in a tank next to several tiers of hydroponic plants.

We won 2 awards!

Judges at the show were equally impressed. Our display has won two awards!

• The American Horticultural Society Environmental Award: for best demonstration of skillful design that incorporates Environmental Stewardship in the Garden.
• The American Horticultural Society Award: for showng agricultural excellence and demonstrating the best example between horticulture and the environment.

"This is a tribute to our wonderful Southern Spring Show team and 9 months of hard work," said Edna Chirico, who led the Ultimate Schoolyard Garden effort.  "Special appreciation to the LandDesign team for the wonderful design and CPCC Carpentry Teams for hours of hard work, our wonderful Horticulturalists and all the special partners involved in planning, building and now manning this display," she said.

See all of the great displays and enjoy the entire home and garden show, which runs today-Sunday (Feb. 23) and Feb. 28-March 2 at the Park Expo on Independence Boulevard at Briar Creek Road. 

Visit our displays online  >>  http://ultimateschoolyardgarden.org

Get Spring Show Tickets and Info  >>  http://www.southernshows.com/sss/

Want a June garden in February? Here's how they do it

(View the video, "Our Garden Starts Here")

Visitors who tour the Ultimate Schoolyard Garden next month at the Southern Spring Home & Garden Show will find hundreds of vegetable and flower plants that look like we plucked them from the future.
We didn't, of course. We just fooled Mother Nature into thinking it's June instead of February. On Jan. 7, the day after record Arctic cold swept through Charlotte, we met horticulture instructor Annie West inside the greenhouse at CPCC's Cato Campus to learn how that's possible.
Annie and Kaiti O'Donnell, owner of Living Color landscaping, are overseeing the task of growing nearly 1,000 plants at three locations for the two-weekend garden show. LifeSpan and Holy Angels of Belmont are also growing plants in their greenhouses.
Annie gave us a tour of the Cato Campus green house and talked about process.
You can see the work for yourself by visiting the Ultimate Schoolyard Garden. It will be on display at the Southern Spring Home & Garden Show, Feb. 21-23 and Feb. 28-March 2 at the Park Expo and Conference Center on Briar Creek Road near Independence Boulevard.

• Get tickets – Visit Southernspringshows.com for show details and to buy tickets.
• Learn more about the display – Visit Ultimateschoolyardgarden.org to learn more about our exciting display. 

Green Teacher Network wants you, even if Nov. 1 event is full

Oct. 25 – The River District’s fledgling Green Teacher Network is taking off! We have had so much interest in our second quarterly workshop on Nov. 1 that we have closed registration for the event!

Get garden basics, sneak peek of Ultimate Garden, at Green Teacher Network

Sept. 12 – Get the basics on launching a schoolyard garden and a sneak preview of the Ultimate Schoolyard Garden at the second quarterly meeting of the Green Teacher Network, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Nov. 1 at the CPCC Harris Campus.