Reader Report: H.B. Community Garden provides site for Scout project

The natural world has always sparked my interest. From planting vegetables in my backyard to caring for my pets, from picking up trash on a hike to cleaning a beach on a weekend, I have always cared for the environment.

It was only natural to channel this energy into my Girl Scout Gold Award. In this way, I could educate the community while creating a space for indigenous species. Native plants and animals are a big part of our ecosystem. Knowing the importance of keeping our food, water and soil clean and balanced on a microscopic level, I began my Gold Award project at the Huntington Beach Community Garden.

I had noticed the barren, weed-filled front every weekend when my family and I would tend to our garden, and I decided to take the opportunity to reform it. It was the perfect project since the HBCG council members had been trying to spruce up the entrance on a tight budget.

After the long process of getting approved by the Girl Scout Council, I created a plan that would beautify the garden and educate the public. My idea was to plant native, drought-resistant plants in the large plot by the entrance and create a place where Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts could work toward earning badges such as the bug badge, farmers badge, agriculture patch, etc. When Scouts visit the garden, they will be able to earn badges while learning about the importance of native species and their impact on the environment.

The next step was to gather help. Scott Edwards, the liaison between the HBCG and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, helped by buying organic fertilizer for the rocky soil, answering questions and hosting garden work parties every Saturday. I enlisted the help of my younger brother’s Boy Scout Troop 319, friends and family to volunteer their time. Under my leadership, we rototilled, constructed the walkway and separated the abundant amount of gravel from the dirt.

The HBCG front was once used as a parking lot for electrical workers, so the gravel was packed into the ground. Once the soil was loosened, Bill Clow, a member of the HBCG, offered to buy the plants I researched while volunteers built an irrigation system. The plants consisted of drought-tolerant, native California plants such as lavender, echinacea and lamb’s ear.

These native species were used by Native Americans as well as early colonists for medicinal purposes. For example, lamb’s ear was a substitute for bandages, echinacea reduced the symptoms of the cold and flu, and yarrow took toxic metals out of the soil and could fight infection.

Other native species I included were sage, native grasses, tansy and butterfly bush, all of which attract pollinators. Native pollinators are important because they help indigenous gardens develop and grow.

I also focused on native species such as birds. In another part of my project, I led Cub Scout Troop 557 in building bluebird nesting boxes and taught them about the important role that bluebirds play in the environment. One of the boxes stands at the HBCG entrance.

I had them build the nesting boxes so that Western bluebirds could have a place to raise their young. Western bluebirds are a native species that have nowhere to nest because house sparrows and starlings, which people feed with birdseed, take over their nesting sites. The fewer bluebirds there are, the more harmful insects there will be and the more pesticides people will use.

I spread my project’s concept to students. I started at my former elementary school, James H. Cox Elementary in Fountain Valley, by incorporating the information about native species into the students’ curriculum. I planted plants and herbs that Native Americans and American colonists used, as well as presented information on how the Fibonacci sequence [a series of numbers formed by adding the two numbers before them] is displayed in nature.

Now that my project is coming to a close, I want to spread the word to my community about what I have accomplished and how they can utilize the changes I’ve made. Community members, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, if you’re looking for a place to learn, be sure to stop by the Huntington Beach Community Garden.

Grace Ellison is a resident of Huntington Beach and a student at Edison High School.