Since her retirement from Windham
Primary School fourteen years ago, Shelby Driscoll has continued to volunteer
large amounts of her time each year to keeping the flower gardens at the school
looking good. The time has come for her to pull back, and both she and the
school administration hope that community volunteers will come forward to
maintain the flower gardens when she goes.
Driscoll said that when the building was
built in 1991, it was the most beautiful building in town. The landscaping,
however, left something to be desired. Originally, Junipers were planted all
around the building. With no one assigned to tend them, these Junipers were
broken by snow in the winter, became overgrown and extended into walkways,
turned brown, and just didn’t look good, said Driscoll.
Driscoll, who taught at the school,
remembers going in to work in her classroom in the summer, and feeling tense. When
she realized that it was the sight of the weeds and poorly tended Junipers, she
decided to dig out the weeds and put some spring bulbs into the bed her
classroom looked out on. “The next year, I pulled out a couple of Junipers and
nobody noticed because I put flowers in,” she said. Using her home gardens as a
nursery, she continued pulling them until all the Junipers were gone from that
flower bed. Still, nobody noticed, she said.
Then, her classroom was moved. So, she
began again, pulling out Junipers and putting flowers in their place. Thus the
flower gardens evolved, primarily due to Driscoll’s labor and determination. Knowing
there were always budgetary concerns, she didn’t ask for money to maintain the
gardens, though one year she did receive about $300 from the maintenance fund
for more bulbs. The school has always mulched the gardens, she added. A
custodian made some signs for the gardens, on which Driscoll put gardening
proverbs. Driscoll also received donations frequently from Cooper’s Greenhouse
at the end of their season. In recent years, she said, she has grown a lot from
her own seeds.
Over the years, Driscoll has had bits of
help on occasion, but has always been the force behind the gardens, even after
her retirement in 2000. “Every once in a while someone would come by and help
out, but people’s lives are busy,” she said. “The majority of the labor has
been done by me.”
After her retirement, Driscoll kept
working on the gardens as a labor of love. “I started them. I am of that
generation that if you start something, you finish it,” she said. This is one
task that has no end, however, and it’s time to pass it on. Ultimately, she
said, there should be more than one person working to maintain these flower
beds. She’s still willing to be involved, letting people know what is there,
giving hints on what needs to be done and when, but she can no longer take on
the labor. “It doesn’t have to be one person, many people can do varying
things,” she added.
Driscoll always began working on the
gardens during April vacation, beginning with splitting the Hostas. Mulch is
typically done the first week in May, and someone will need to be ready to go
in mid to late May when the bulbs come through she said.
Dr. Kyle Rhoads, principal at Windham
Primary School, said the gardens are a unique representation of the school. “It’s
a good reflection before you even walk in on what we’re all about.” He is
hopeful that some volunteers will come forward to maintain the gardens.
The gardens are energizing, he said, for
staff and for children and families to see when they enter the school. But the
work is extensive, he acknowledged. There were times, he said, that he saw
Driscoll working in the morning when he arrived, and she was out there when he
left in the afternoon as well. They are looking for more than one volunteer to
take up the task, he said.
The gardens offer a common bond for students
and staff, both former and current, he said. “The beauty of the gardens
reflects the beauty of kids,” he added. Dr. Rhoads said that the community is
very supportive of the school in general. “This is another opportunity for
community support.”
Anyone interested in volunteering to
work on the Windham Primary School gardens should contact the school at
892-1840.
