Garden Development
I started this project in the Spring of 2018 with the help of Ms. Annabelle Moore and the American Red Cross on Yokota Air Base, Japan. The Red Cross was already developing and building a "Healing Garden" on the West Side of the base so I asked to join their project by adding the sensory garden into the larger garden.
During a trip back to the states to visit my grandparents in June 2018, I started to collect hard to find items for my garden like the Gnomes, watering can and other garden statues. I used my free time to paint and prep items before shipping them back to Japan.
Once I was back in Japan, the real work began of prepping my garden for planting. The rest of the Red Cross Garden had been finished, so my plot was the only empty one left. The temperatures were very hot during July and August so I used the cooler mornings to my advantage to clean the rocks out of the soil, add compost and prep the soil for planting. My friend Sydney helped me with the layout of my garden making sure that everything was in the right place.
After I had developed a plan of attack, I decided I needed to purchase more plants and my border rocks needed color. I kept my plants on my back porch at the house for a few days and enjoyed some painting time while waiting for a few rainy days to pass. During the storms, I realized that some of my "characters" were being blown over so this is when I decided to attach them to bricks to make them more stable against the weather. With the help of my Dad (and Google Translate), we purchased construction adhesive at the local Japanese hardware store and got everything prepped for the garden.
Planting day had come and so did the heat. Thank you Red Cross for providing me with a canopy to work under! I carefully got all of my plants and characters staged and then went section by section and planted everything into the ground. I was glad that Meagan stopped by to check on me. She showed me how to break apart the roots of my "cramped" potted plants before putting them into the ground!
The next part of my plan was installing the signs I had ordered. My dad helped me drill holes in the signs and showed me how to put them on the borders of the garden.
The hardest part of my project was creating a water feature that would work without electricity being available to the garden. With help of my Papaw (grandfather), we figured out a way to attach a solar powered pump into the fountain but to also use a switch that would turn on and off the motor when the water level in the fountain got too low. Gentleman from the HQ AF Flight Standard Agency helped me attached this special switch onto my water pump. After that, my dad and I headed back out to the garden to get the whole water feature put together.
Once everything was in place, the last finishing touch was adding mulch to help with moisture. With a little help from my mom, we were able to get several pounds of gorilla mulch in place to help protect the plants from the hot dry heat. The mulch helped hold the moisture in the ground in between waterings.
Another one of my great mentors through out my project has been Jennifer Wong, The Air Force Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP). The Program is designed to provide support to military family members with special needs. She has helped me develop my garden so it would help the people that need it most. I learned all about the technique of "grounding" and how it can be used in the garden I was developing. I enjoyed meeting with Ms. Wong and her therapy dog Casey in her office located in the Family Readiness building.
The garden has been growing really well during the summer and fall seasons despite the many typhoons we have gotten here in Japan. The extra rain was appreciated in the garden world!
Typhoon NUMBER 3 just hit this past weekend (September 30th, 2018) and my little garden is still holding on strong! The poor basil plant is now "Bald" and some of the ornamental grasses look like they had their head out the window of a car driving down the highway but they made it! The healing garden itself had several trees that are down so there was a huge clean up scheduled for the garden this past week.
The time has come to present my project to Yokota Air Base, Japan. I held an Open House and small ceremony on Saturday, October 27th, 2018 for the public top attend. Many of my fellow Girl Scouts and their leaders attended to support me........ and to enjoy the scavenger hunts I had created!
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There were homemade snacks for everyone to enjoy while they listened in on the ceremony.
During the ceremony, Colonel Jones, the Base Commander, Chief Master Sergeant Young, the Base Command Chief had wonderful things to say about the Sensory Garden and how it will be a wonderful asset for the base.
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Next to speak was Ms. Megan Dendy from the Yokota Red Cross. She shared funny stories about us working in the garden together and also presented me with the Youth Volunteer of the the Quarter Award from the Yokota American Red Cross.
Last to speak on behalf of the garden was Ms. Jennifer Wong with her service dog, Casey from the Yokota Exceptional Family Member Program.
To close the ceremony, I invited all of my speakers from the ceremony and my fellow Girl Scouts to join me for the cutting of the ribbon!
After the ceremony had finished, I said thank you to all of the people that came out to support me at the Open House especially:
My Principal, Ms. Hill and Assistant Principal, Ms. Leverett from Yokota High School
My Guidance Counselor, Dr. Burton
My World Geography Teacher, Mr. Ruby and my Band Director, Ms. Gaume
My Best Friend Tai from school
My fellow Troop 22 Girl Scout Ashton
And my friend Rebecca, a fellow cheerleader and the editor of the School Yearbook!
At the end of the morning, I completed interviews with AFN (Armed Forces Network) Television and the Stars and Stripes Newspaper reporter. Then, it was time to clean up and call it a day!
For the next stage in my project, I decided to to invite children (and young adults) and their parents to enjoy an educational afternoon with me in the garden! I chose to split the age groups up into smaller groups to help with numbers and to help modify the activities to better serve the different ages. The first group I worked with were children ages 3 to 2nd grade and the second group were 3rd grade through 5th grade. After speaking with an elementary school teacher, they recommended that we start with learning the parts of a plant.
"This is the center of a sunflower. See how the seeds fall out now that it is dry?"
After we finished the parts of a plant, we explored the Sensory Garden. First we reviewed our five senses and then we learned how we could use them in the garden. My favorite quote from the afternoon was "Mom! Emma said I CAN touch the plants!" They enjoyed smelling, touching, tasting and looking for all the things listed on the scavenger hunts!
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Sight
Smell
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Touch
Taste
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We then moved over to the Healing Garden's active compost pile where we learned about what compost is, how compost works and what kinds of bugs are needed in a compost pile. We played the compost game where the children sorted the items seen on the table into good and bad compost. When we finished with the game, they got to "feed" the worms they had discovered while we were digging.
For their last activity of the afternoon, we learned about how plants grow from seeds and the different stages that plant goes through. I decided to demonstrate this through the help of pinto bean Green Houses! Each child was shown how to make their very own Green House to take home and grow in their windows. Ten days prior to this, I stated beans in my own gardens so they could see what their plants would look like in the future!
Once I finished with the younger students, I set up a different series of activities for the older group. My last group of the day were students in middle school and high school. It had been expressed to me that the older students wanted to learn how to use the garden for its real purpose, to relieve stress. The first activity we did was to learn a little bit about the senses, our bodies and stress. We talked about how stress can affect how we feel and function. I also introduced the concept of "Grounding" and how it works. I used worksheets to help them record their thoughts and help them see how they can manage their own stress levels there in the garden and at home with different grounding techniques.
I know that I am a "hands on" learner so I wanted to make sure that the older students also had an activity that would help with the learning process. After talking about stress, the five senses and how to use the garden, we made our way over to the table to make stress balls. After listening to them talk, one of the biggest stresses for most of the kids were school so the stress balls were the best things to add to their stress fighting arsenal. We used high quality balloons, rice and essential oils and created wonderful smelling balls that could be used during class or while doing homework.
There is nothing like a beautiful Fall day to make you want to work in the garden. I finally had a day free to get out to the Sensory Garden and hang up the wooden "Grounding" signs. Thank you again to SSGT Denise Hernandez for her help with these. Under the watchful eye of my dad, I was able to get the signs mounted on the sides of the planting bed. The garden also needed some TLC and water but other than that........ the garden is still in full bloom and welcome to visitors.
As fall came to an end and winter set in, all of the plants went dormant...... It's OK! I know that they will be back in the spring! Rest well little ones! See you soon!
I made my way out to the garden in the middle of April (2019) to see what was coming back in the garden. We had some pretty bad frosts and I lost quite a few of my bigger plants BUT the herbs and the succulent gardens were extremely happy and growing in nicely!
As I was looking around the garden, I noticed that visitors to garden had been contributing to it's beauty and leaving additions of extra houses, animals and even mushrooms!
It is finally warm enough to clean out the garden and get new plants added in. With the help of friends and volunteers, we were able to get the weeds cleaned out, new plants put in, new mulch laid and got the water fountain cleaned out and running again!
The Sensory Garden at Yokota Air Base is once again open for visitors!
It is bitter sweet. The Sensory Garden and I were recognized and awarded our Gold Award but then a month later my father received ordered to leave Japan. I know that even though I am leaving, the garden is in good hands. Thank you to the Yokota Red Cross and their volunteers and the Yokota Girl Scouts for having invested interest in this project. I hope that the garden will continue to flourish even after I leave!
