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The Martha's Vineyard Times is a weekly publication.
December 30 - January 5, 2004 Edition
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Vineyard Gardens Field Trips December 30, 2004 Story and photos by JJ Gonson Edgartown second graders wander through a greenhouse. Photos by JJ Gonson Suza Breese and Avery Miner, kindergarteners at West Tisbury School, show the holiday decorations they made. Left to right: Jacob Lewis, Alec Cobban, Andrew Fournier, and Austin Fournier get sticky hands from digging into peanut butter, which they used to make bird feeders. “It’s better than TV!” exclaimed Christine Wiley. “Homemade gifts are the best!” On this chilly Monday morning, the owner of Vineyard Gardens was warming up between school field trips, getting ready to excite another group of students about using organic materials to make gifts that are beautiful, creative, and good for the planet. Christine has a background in teaching. She taught biology at the high school for six years and feels strongly about sharing what she knows about how plants grow with young minds. Christine and the staff of Vineyard Gardens have been generously giving of their time and knowledge for 15 years. They host field trips at all times of the year, for preschool to third grade classes from all of the schools on the Island, and talk about seasonally relevant things. For example, in springtime they walk through the herb house, touching the herbs, smelling them, and talking about what they are used for. Christine says Christmas is the best time of year for school groups to visit, both because she is less busy than she is in the warmer months and because the kids get to go home with special gifts that they have made themselves. During this year’s holiday season, there were sometimes two classes every day coming in to learn about how plants make seeds and how those seeds then make new plants. The kids sipped apple cider after learning how to tie together fir boughs into door decorations, roll pine cones in peanut butter and birdseed to make natural feeders, and fill squares of cloth with balsam and lavender leaves to make small scent bags, or sachets, for drawers. Willa and Ava Vingeault and Seasal Vaughn enjoy their visit to Vineyard Gardens. Christine Wiley discusses the anatomy of a poinsettia with Kezia Alvares, Michaela Rivard, and Megan Hurley. Vineyard Gardens has a working relationship with the Polly Hill Arboretum, propagating, planting, and sharing new discoveries. Polly Hill visitors who are intrigued by a plant they see on a walk might very well be able to find it for their own garden at the nursery. The evergreens that were being gathered for the students to use were a representation of this. “Everything but the wire and ribbons are collected from things we plant out,” explained Christine. The owners and staff of Vineyard Gardens work hard with Polly Hill and its staff to collect all kinds of plant specimens, and the evergreens that can be found in both places range from the more common to the quite unusual. “More and more we have a collection of extraordinary greens,” Christine said. Two examples are Polly Hill azaleas, which are low growing and bloom late, making them unique, and Chamaecyparis Quiana, one of Polly’s personal favorites, which has a bluish tint to it and is well adapted to Island conditions. Before they started making gifts, the students were invited to walk through a greenhouse and discuss what they saw. Christine encouraged them to think about the anatomy of a plant, a seasonally appropriate poinsettia, and got them to look deep inside of the leaves to where the flowers and eggs, which will one day be seeds, were developing. “It’s very interesting, and very scientific,” they all agreed. She talks about seeds having baby plants inside that will be born when the seed is put into dirt and watered. “When they are born they will look just like their parents. Do some of you look like your parents?” she asked. She invited them to ask questions and drew them into discovering connections between plants, animals, and ultimately themselves. “Slow down!” Christine told her visitors, “Walk around, look at the beauty around you. Look at all the things nature has to show us.” It was a poignant message at a time of year when it is easy to dash out and buy the first machine-made item that is convenient, just in the name of saving time. The children who visit Vineyard Gardens quickly realize that it is neither difficult nor time-consuming to make a special gift that will mean more to the receiver than anything they could pick off of a store’s shelf. In Christine’s words, “It has a hands-on element, and that makes it extra-memorable!”

©The Martha's Vineyard Times 2004 - www.mvtimes.com