Modesto elementary school wins garden

A school garden sprouted overnight at Sonoma Elementary School, the gift of a company and a baseball team impressed by third-graders’ wish to save monarch butterflies.

“I think it’s pretty cool, because a lot of butterflies are getting extinct,” said third-grader Madison Smith, a member of this year’s class taught by Deborah Basey.

Basey applied for the Earth Day contest last school year and her students, now fourth-graders, joined in cheering and planting six-packs of sunny annuals at Friday’s ribbon cutting.

“We wanted to save the monarchs. That’s what we’re hoping to do,” said Basey as she helped students dig little indents to place their flowers and gently press in dirt around them.

“I do the butterfly life cycle in class. We tie it in with biology,” she said. Putting in for the statewide contest was something her students got excited about, but she did not expect to win.

“We were kind of shocked. We send off for all kinds of things and never hear back,” said Principal Darin Willett before the ceremony.

The garden arrived Thursday, built in a matter of hours by a Kellogg Garden crew and filled with the company’s organic planting soil. Company representatives were around to help students dig into their new assignment, caring for the four beds in the primary grades play area.

“This is the first garden in three years (of having the contest) that was butterfly based. All the others are vegetable gardens,” said Adam Hall, Kellogg Garden area manager.

The Sonoma school garden plan was one of three selected out of about 2,000 applications in California, he said. The other two were in Stockton and Southern California.

“It’s the most unique design, that’s the thing,” Hall said. “What’s great about this is it’s a butterfly garden, to save the monarchs. We all want that.”

The contest was co-sponsored by the Modesto Nuts and their California League. Basey’s butterfly garden designers got tickets to a Nuts game in August, complete with on-field presentation and complimentary hot dog meals.

“One of our students threw the first pitch,” Willett said.

The students will help care for the garden, with the help of a hose, nozzle extension and four trowels donated by Kellogg along with the beds, bark, plants and soil.

Perennial lantanas and other butterfly favorites were among the greenery flourishing in the beds Friday. They can look forward to a long and happy life among the monarchs. But the bright little annuals popping up in the dark dirt should enjoy the sun while it shines.

“When all the annuals die, we’ll replace them with milkweed,” Basey said, referring to the monarchs diet staple while catepillars. “Now I’m looking for milkweed seeds.”

This story was originally published November 8, 2015 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Modesto elementary school wins garden."