Creative, entertaining, witty, eye-catching. The colors pop out, and the creative images maintain your attention. Their mysterious aura keeps you longing for more. If you have ever walked the school’s halls, you know of the Gardening Club. Or at least their famous posters. Senior Rachel Chung makes them on Google Slides without a template, just her creativity.
To connect to the community through a shared love of plants, Co-Presidents Rachel Chung, Courtney Lewis and Chase Spees began Gardening Club last winter.
“My dad grows tomatoes in the backyard. He’s been growing tomatoes for a very long time. I’ve grown up with a lot of gardening,” Chung said. The Gardening Club maintains the school gardens along with planting their projects in the greenhouse throughout the winter months.“[The goal is] to connect our community through our shared love of plants,” Chung said.
While Spees intends to grow plants in the future, they are using the gardening club to learn more about gardening for the future. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Spees said. “I’m not planning on learning anything; I’m just having a fun time. Learning how to care for plants while simultaneously helping the school with various gardening needs is the Gardening Club’s mission. In September, they finished caring for the Mel E. Doyle memorial garden, in memory of a Clayton teacher in the 80s, who passed away in 1996, by planting tulips and daffodils.
“The memorial garden for Mel E. Doyle has been one of our favorite projects this year. When we mention our work there, people often haven’t heard of the plot, even though most see it every day,” Chung said. With the warmer weather ending, the club started propagating pothos plants during the winter. “I also had a lot of extra vines from my Pothos plants at home, and propagation is super easy for beginners.”
Spees hopes that they will be able to take the plants home and distribute them around the school. “I know very little about gardening, whereas Rachel and some of our other members know a lot,” Spees said. “We did a lot of research last year about growing seasons and stuff like that, but mostly, we learn from each other and our sponsor [World Language teacher Pamela Skinner], gardens a lot in her free time.”
The Gardening Club needs donations to continue with greater impact projects.
“In a sense, the Gardening Club is a representation of our hope for the future. Every time we plant something, we are investing time now for beauty to come,” Chung said.
The club plans to label plants around campus, [create] mental health gardening activities for finals, and general supplies for gardening. “We hope the message and community we foster in Gardening Club spreads across the school and leaves our legacy. Even when we leave Clayton High School, we hope the spirit of The Gardening Club remains,” Chung said.
