Bring Your Own Shovel Plant Sale
So you’re asking yourself, what the heck is a “Bring Your Own Shovel Plant Sale”? It’s a way to rescue perennials, shrubs, and bulbs at Geneva Heights Elementary before they are destroyed during the reconstruction of the school.
Everyone – school staff, parents, neighbors, and Master Gardeners – is invited to bring a shovel to Geneva Heights Elementary School at 2911 Delmar Avenue, Dallas 75206 on Saturday, March 26 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dig. Prices for the rescued treasures are $5 for one gallon, $10 for two gallon, and $20 for five gallon. We will accept only cash for sales.
Geneva Heights Elementary opened its doors in 1931 as Robert E. Lee Elementary. This charming IB World and Dual Language school has 430 culturally diverse students. In 2005, it became Dallas County Master Gardeners’ first school garden project. What began as a desolate courtyard has bloomed into five distinct learning areas: a perennial garden certified as a wildlife habitat, a spectacular vegetable garden, an herb garden, a pipevine swallowtail garden, and a monarch garden.
Now, as part of a Dallas ISD bond package, the school will be rebuilt. A portion of the original 1930s façade will be preserved, but subsequent additions to the school built in the 1950s and 1990s will be torn down. A beautiful new school and campus will be open for students in January 2024.
With construction starting in August 2022, the school community will be relocated for three semesters to another site. While preserving the mature trees on the campus is a priority, there is no realistic way to save the gardens around the building or to move the plants to a safe place on campus.
A small sampling of the plants available at Geneva Heights Elementary School:
After 17 years of gardening at Geneva Heights, there is a bounty of plants and tools that will please gardeners. Among the varieties of plants are Echinacea, Rudbeckia, Flame Acantha, Lyre Leaf Sage, Fall Aster, Turk’s cap, Gold and Silver Chrysanthemum, Iris, Columbine, and much more.
The Herb Garden includes a large Bay tree, Mexican Mint Marigold, Lemon Verbena, Mediterranean Oregano, Chili pequin, and Lemon Grass.
Among the shrubs you’ll find are Abelia kaleidoscope, Flowering Quince, Yaupon Holly, Sweetspire, and American Beautyberry. In the beds in the front of the school, heirloom daffodils have been planted that have consistently won ribbons for the student gardeners. You’ll be welcome to dig up bulbs during the sale. Master Gardeners will be available to assist with identifying plants.
In addition to plants, we expect to also sell an assortment of garden tools and other supplies that can’t be stored. There will be shovels, trowels and vegetable cages among the items that have been accumulated over 17 years! Other school gardens might benefit from some of the teaching tools for students. Participants from interested schools, please contact Lisa Chamberlain for more information: lisaachamberlain@gmail.com.
If you volunteer at Geneva Heights now or have in the past and want to capture a memento, if you can’t stand the thought of all these plants being lost to the bulldozer, or if you have a place in your home landscape for some of these beauties, please mark your calendar and come to Geneva Heights (one block off lower Greenville Avenue) on Saturday, March 26.
Don’t forget your shovel!
Betsy See has been a certified Master Gardener since 2017. She leads the Garden Team at Geneva Heights Elementary School and is working as a lieutenant to Nancy Black on the 2022 Garden Tour. After participating in the 2021 Advanced Tree Training offered by Tarrant County Master Gardener Association, she’s fixated on learning more about trees and doing more to protect our trees in Dallas County.
