Author: svarghese5

Service Blog #7

by svarghese5

I have had several things going on with the Georgia Native Plant Society. As there are different “mini-organizations” within GNPS or other partners, I kind of get the opportunity to volunteer with many of them. First of all, I returned to the Stone Mountain Propagation Project to separate the growing native species into smaller pots. In a way, it is quite stress-relieving. These species, commonly known as river oats, were placed into small cells to grow first. As they had grown since August and were becoming too big for their cells, we took them out and separated the roots to put into other containers, doubling the amount of river oats. This took some hack job as we used scissors and even a saw at one point to separate the roots. This taught me that I seriously underestimated the strength of plants. Kelley, who is the manager of SMPP allowed volunteers to take home some flowers as well. I planted them in my frontyard and hope to see some wonderful plants soon!

I next volunteered at the Trees Atlanta native plant sale. All the funds from this event go to funding classes hosted by Trees Atlanta. I helped find plants as cars pulled up with the list of what they had ordered online. One of the buyers bought 250 plants. It took two days to get all his plants into his minivan; he lived 70 miles away and he was willing to drive almost 300 miles for all these plants. The last two pictures were some of the plethora of plants being sold. The last one in the crate was a foam flower that was a special order for someone.

Lastly, I volunteered at the Herbert Taylor Park last Saturday. I got to shovel out invasive species next to a walking trail. Most of the patch was already cleared out by a 90-year old man who lived next to the park. Seeing his work was amazing as I saw yellow flowers from a native species sticking out throughout that cleared-out patch; our goal was to continue to clear the patch to allow trail walkers to see the stream that ran through the park. When we first started digging, I saw many small invasive plants and a couple of growing trees. However, two hours into shoveling, I came across tall trees with large roots that we had to remove. I was able to use a tree wrench to dig the tree roots from the soil. I got to carry many trees as we threw them to the side for birds to use as nesting material.

Finally, speakers from GNPS came over to the Honors College to discuss with students about native planting. It was a great educative event. Even I learned more things than I was expecting to. Did you know that leaving the lights on outside negatively affects plant growth?

Volunteering with GNPS has been a great opportunity. I have learned a lot about native species that I will keep in mind for a long time. I hope that I can continue to teach other members of my community, friends and family the importance of planting native.

P.S. These are some photos I sneaked in (with permission). The first one is from SMPP; this is one of the species that I separated into other pots. The second and third are from the Trees Atlanta plant sale. 

Picture of small plants that were potted into small pots.
 
Two rows of vines with a red flower that were set up to be sold.
Foam flowers that were sticking out of a crate to be sold.

Update #1

by svarghese5

Hi Everyone! Today, I began my volunteering projects with the Georgia Native Plant Society (GNPS). It did and did not meet my expectations of what I thought volunteering with GNPS would be like. 

At 10 in the morning, I got to volunteer at the Stone Mountain Propagation Project (SMPP). Located behind the parking lot of Stone Mountain is a place filled with rows of pots of native plants that were being nurtured. There, I got to work separating native plants into gallon-sized pots they could grow in. The work taught me that gardening can require sawing apart the soil sometimes. I also learned to pot plants, which I have not done before. While volunteering at SMPP, I also got to meet other volunteers. Most of them were retired and their professions ranged from being a microbiologist at CDC to being in IT, but they all had a passion for gardening. Their level of knowledge in gardening also surprised me because it was not a part of their profession before. From them, I learned interesting things like insects can secrete chemicals that cause a specific plant (I can’t remember the name) to change its growth pattern to protect the insect’s egg; the effect on the plant also depends on the insect. 

At 2 in the afternoon, I volunteered at Mary Scott Nature Park. I would pass by this park every day on my way to my high school, but I never visited it. At Mary Scott, I got to do what I had originally expected to do when partnering with GNPS: dig out invasive species of plants and promote the growth of native plants. I got to remove invasive plants from the ground, allowing the native plants to grow better. There, I got to meet Susan and Marty. They showed me the different plants that were invasive and native. I would follow Marty around and from her, I learned how to separate the “bad guys” and “good guys”. I would point out and help her remove the “bad guys”. The digging up of invasive plants mainly occurred near the parking lot at the entrance. This is because this is the site many people visit first. If visitors saw an invasive species growing at the park, they would assume that those same plants were suitable to buy from a store and to grow in their backyard. To avoid this, once a month volunteers would dig up and trash invasive plants to both promote native plants to visitors and to also allow the native plants to grow without competition. 

In both these opportunities, the volunteers were very welcoming and would help me learn about Georgia plant life. I learned about their interesting and various backgrounds while they learned about mine. Volunteering with GNPS has started on a fun note and I hope that it continues like so. 

I am excited about my future opportunities with GNPS!

Introduction: Sheryl Varghese

by svarghese5

Hello! My name is Sheryl and I am a second-year chemistry major.  I am in this course because I have not volunteered in many events since I started college, and this course would allow me to start volunteering again, especially in a field that I have not participated in before. This course has been more educative on the environment than I first thought it would be. I got to read some books that gave interesting insights on climate change.  I learned about superfunds by reading Kathryn Glass’s Savage. Also discussing with my classmates their perspectives on what the authors are saying is fun. These conversations can be carried on in our future conversations with people outside of this class, even if our professions might differ. 

I am especially looking forward to volunteering with GNPS. It is exciting to look at the variety of opportunities that the organization has to offer for volunteers. While I have only had one meeting to introduce myself, I learned a lot from that meeting about GNPS. Their goal is to bring back the native plant life of Georgia, by removing invasive species, planting native plants, and also educating people on the different categories of plant life that exist. While we have not begun volunteering yet, the survey responses from GNPS already provided ideas on what my classmate and I can do for our project. One of these is updating the organization’s website with information on native plant life. I find this to be a worthwhile project to undertake as it is always fun to help teach people something new but this will also help me learn about native plant life. Sidenote, but I also have a backyard that I have been wanting to add plants to to make it lively. I hope that volunteering with this organization will help me learn about plant choices I should make when looking for seeds. For example, something that I learned in my first meeting with GNPS was that many stores do not sell native plants. Sometimes people working at those places do not know what native plants Georgia has. I hope to be able to educate myself about what to look for when looking for plants for my backyard.

Looking forward to the rest of this semester!