Green Sanctuary
Summer 2024 Team Report: Progress and Plans
Last summer, we commissioned a landscape plan from Jon Fritz, designer and owner of Bluestem Landscape Design; and in the fall, we began work on enhancing and expanding our native garden areas. We have enhanced two areas, expanded one, and added three new garden spots. I’m amazed at how much our green team and friends have done this year! The green team met July 25 to discuss accomplishments and ideas for this fall, winter, and the coming year. This is a report on the budget and accomplishments, as well as a request for approval of plans.
Mission: Our goal is for the church campus to be as inspiring and nurturing as our Sanctuary. The Green Sanctuary project might appear to land squarely in “Operation Facelift,” but it is much more. It offers opportunities for connection through working together, and fun (yes, planting and even weeding can be fun), improves our environment, and makes our campus a welcoming place for people and wildlife. Our campus is becoming a small oasis for nature in Spartanburg.
Budget report, all numbers rounded:
Gifts: $6,000 for Green Sanctuary; $500 & $375 for benches, and another. Total: $6,875 +
Expenditures: Plants, mulch & labor: $1,431; Benches $1,100; Misc. $230.
Remainder: per Miga, about $4,400
Accomplishments and Plans:
In the front foyer area, below, we expanded the salvia garden with spireas (Virginia Sweetspire/Itea Henry’s Garnet and 3 Little Henry), pink muhly grass, and ‘sugar and spice’ arborvitae; we want to continue the expansion, adding some penstemons (beardtongue) and monarda (beebalm), and then going down the slope, with larger shrubs, to wrap around the lower corner.
Church members donated and Fred Stoll installed two bences in the front church area:
Merike Tamm continues to maintain the bed of Native Ferns of Spartanburg and is also responsible for the pruning of large trees.
We enhanced the garden area along the children’s fence, now including several perennial ashy sunflowers and Lonicera sempervirens (Coral Honeysuckle), a climbing aster, Heliopsis helianthoides (false sunflower) and annual zinnias. We expect the zinnias to reseed. The perennials tend to follow a pattern of first year sleep, second year creep, and third year leap, so we expect thse to be much bigger next year!
Earlier this year:
We maintained the grove of small trees, yaupon holly & Carolina laurel, west of the main parking lot. (Bob Mitchell reminded me that this is not part of the church property.) As this grows, our view of the street and small businesses will be obscured by the trees.
We maintained the Triangle Butterfly Garden, removing wisteria and most pokeberries, etc. Some of the perennial flowers we planted in 2020-21, sunflowers and coneflowers, are doing well, and we want to sow more wildflowers this fall. We admired the steady growth of the eastern red cedars (from Merike Tamm’s yard), which are creating a buffer zone between UUCS and Staffing Associates.
Top, 202, 8 months after the tornado vs. lower, now, a view from Staffing Associates:
We maintained and expanded the row of native trees and blueberries, adding to the mulch to allow addition of a soaker hose under the solid line of mulch. This garden area could be increased with the additino of a thick mulch and native plants between the blueberries and the fence.
We added a small garden area with two donated Carolina Sapphires (Cupressus arizonica) and one ice blue juniper, plus annual zinnias, between the Sanctuary and Hatcher House (thank you, Kathleen). Eventually these trees will decrease road noise in our outdoor meeting area. The bricks that protect plants from mowing & weed-eating will be replaced with an edging.
We names the fence by Hatcher House “pollinator row,” and planted 5 yellow jessamines (SC state flower) and a climbing aster (not pictured).
We created two new garden areas in front of Hatcher House, using Jon Fritz’s landscape plan as a guide. These perennials have required watering two or three times a week during dry spells, but will need less next year. These include, by the house, a flame azalea, eastern bluestar, and Joe Pye weed, clematis, goldenrod, bluebird smooth aster & Raydon’s favorite aster, Helianthus angustifolius, Dark Towers Penstemon, monarda (Panorama mix beebalm), and Cherokee sedge; and then by the retaining wall, a flame azalea, 2 winterberries, one each male & female, several pink muhly grass, monarda (beebalm), black-eyed susans, and 2 giant coneflowers. These will fill in next year, and we don’t anticipate adding anything except mulch to these gardens.
We want to expand the front foyer garden area, as mentioned previously, and develop two new areas into gardens:
Next to the front foyer garden, a bare, grassy area between the parking lot and the sidewalk could be a beautiful garden spot. It is a highly visible area.
At the church parking lot entrance, around the sign, where we removed the blue box (at one time, a functioning self-watering planter, but vandalized): This is a small but also higly visible area. The phlox are pretty in the spring, and this could be a showpiece, planted with more native plants that require minimal watering:
Our team has a vast amount of experience in gardening, and we have the energy and will do the work. We have a Clemson graduate in environmental science and horticulture to assist us with planning & labor. We have Jon Fritz’s garden plans to inspire us. The Green Team is both a part of Social Justice and of our Buildings & Grounds (a subcommittee), with Naomi Richardson involved in decision making. We can buy plants at the SC Native Plant sale on September 24 & elsewhere. We can also use many of the natives I planted from seed last winter: 26 Penstemons, 8 Muhly grass, 13 dwarf blue salvia, 8 yarrow, and 10 monarda, ready to be planted on the church grounds in the fall. Below this pic are pics from the garden catalogue. With the continuing wise use of the DD Green Sanctuary donation, we can accomplish all that we have planned, and have money for maintenance & further growth.
Green Team: Alice Sutton, Jamie Hendrick, Harriet Goforth, Flo Barber, and Andy Myers, with help from Kyle O’Rourke
A couple last pictures:
Autumn Blaze Maple donated in memory of Ed Wilde by his Covenant Group, and several small native trees, July 2024.
Truck and mulch that help make it all possible!
