Spring is Blooming at Teton Botanical Garden
As winter draws to an end and the snow begins to melt our thoughts naturally are focused on the upcoming gardening season. This spring is blooming lots of exciting projects both old and new that will continue to grow our dream of a world class botanical experience in Teton County.
Last fall we purchased bulbs with some of our donation funds and planted them at the therapeutic beds at The Community Counseling Center and St. John’s new Sage Living in Center, we are happy to report the first crocuses and muscari are blooming and the various daffodil and tulip blends are just starting to poke through the ground. Both of these sites have other new adventures happening. At the Community Counseling Center we have purchased and will be assembling a raised bed cover to help extend the vegetable growing season and are working on plans to create outdoor therapy locations.
With the completion of construction at St John’s Sage Living Center we can begin planting the ten outdoor vegetable beds in front of the building. We plan to build wheelchair friendly raised garden beds on 4-5 of the existing ground level beds so residents that are wheelchair restricted may still partake in the gardening activities. We also participated in writing and received a grant through Teton Conservation District to make a pollinator specific raised garden bed on site and are currently sourcing pollinator friendly native plants and designing the bed for construction.
The Farm to School program continues to thrive at all of our school beds which include Jackson Hole Middle School, Summit High School, Kelly Elementary, Jackson High School, Wilson Elementary and we are extremely excited to be introducing a new project with the students at Munger Mountain Elementary School beginning late May ‘22. Jackson Hole Middle School will be purchasing a seed starting indoor grow kit for their program. Summit High School will be getting some bed upkeep/rebuilding and will be planting the ten fruit trees we purchased last fall and the three vegetable beds at the Jackson High School will get a spring clean and native pollinator garden.
Many of you are familiar with our partnership project at the National Museum of Wildlife Art and the creation of the Greater Yellowstone Botanical Tour and accompanying Audio Tour which has been completed and is set to go live in June. We will continue to support the Fire Ecology study on the Museum grounds and we plan to add more varieties of native plants to the GYBT and sculpture trail on site.
Jackson Eco Fair on Saturday May 14 was a great success. We were happy with the turnout despite the rainy spring weather (that we all are grateful for). We hired an intern that visited our booth while at the Eco Fair. Stay tuned to get to know Avery better throughout the growing season!
Our mission and projects are funded by donations and made possible through the passion of our volunteers. If you are interested in taking part in any of our projects or want to make a donation please contact us through email or via phone. info@tetonbotanicalgarden.org, 307-734-9235
Happy Growing!
Josh St John
Co-founder/treasurer