Pierce College Gardeners

Re “Gardeners Notion Blossoms at Pierce,” Aug. 25.

Your story about the efforts of the gardening staff at Pierce College to beautify the campus at their own expense really got me thinking about how the community could support this effort. What they have accomplished on their own is commendable and noteworthy, and I think it would be worth considering some additional avenues of support.

It would seem that the adjacent West Valley Occupational Center might be able to grow some of the plants for Pierce as part of their landscaping program. I have heard that they have an excellent program and that they even have regular plant sales at the center. Perhaps the center’s classes could undertake this as a class project. Additionally, there are numerous nursery and home improvement centers in the area that, if approached, might volunteer a certain number of plants on a seasonal basis as a service to the college and to the community. Also, it might be possible for the groups in Woodland Hills that support retaining Pierce College as an agricultural resource to “adopt” the gardening department and underwrite its landscaping efforts.

Another idea would be to ask some of the wonderful people who garden at the Encino Community Garden Center to start some flats from seed or propagate their existing plants and donate them to Pierce. (Most gardeners are never lacking for plants, and usually welcome the opportunity to start new ones, even if they have no place to plant them.)

As chair of the Streetscape Committee for Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, I am most supportive of measures that beautify our communities. Kudos to the Pierce College gardeners.

MIKIE MALONEY

Sherman Oaks