Tag: Trees Atlanta

Service Blog Post #4

by kclarke22

Hi Everyone, 

I hope everyone is doing well. During my volunteer experience, my classmate Sheryl and I were working during different service shifts associated with the mission statement from the Georgia Native Plant Society. For my most recent update, I volunteered on Friday morning with the Atlanta Trees from 9 am-3 pm. This volunteer project focused on sorting, organizing, and moving Native Plants for their plant sale held at the Carter Center for the following day. Additionally, while I was volunteering there was a group of 8-9 employees from Delta Airlines who were also volunteering and a few other college students with us. Our group had roughly 20 volunteers plus 5-6 Atlanta Trees workers.  

During this project, I arrived at the Carter Center around 7:45 am and I signed in with the coordinator for my shift. Then, we began unloading several native plants from a large truck to the parking lot. This consisted of us sorting the plants into several categories in the parking lot. We unloaded 3 trucks of different native plant species. There were printed label signs for each species, and we lined our plants up one by one into each category. We had over 30 categories of plants sorted. These pants consisted of flower pots, native trees, and seeds. After moving all of the plants, we had to organize their plants into different categories for purchases. This included adding a specific color of duck tape to each group of native plants. This would determine the price each group would be sold for. This consisted of us cutting and pasting a piece of duck tape onto each flower pant. Afterward, we organized signs and displays for each plant to be added in front of each plant species. We cleaned up each flower pot that may had leaves or trash inside each pot to make each area look neat and organized. 

After completing this project, it was nice to see how this empty parking lot looked very organized and became a learning classroom. As we were moving the signs, I was able to learn more about each plant we were displaying to sell. Each description stated 2 fun facts about each plant, the prime time to grow (April to November) or (June-August), and how long it would take to fully blossom. I enjoyed speaking with the other volunteers as well and I learned that the Delta Employees have a proud connection with Atlanta Trees and that they normally volunteer with them often. The other 2 students I met went to Emory University and they were also volunteering for one of their academic class as well. They Emory students completed the second shift with me as well and I ate the lunch I brought with them inside the Carter Center during our break. The Delta Employees left after the first shift and there were new volunteers with us during the second shift. Overall, this was a great volunteering experience and I’m glad I was able to expand my knowledge of beginning to grow native plants and making them more available for people to buy and grow. 

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.