Unsustainable Landscaping; Sustainable Children

This entry was meant to be a "second" in a series on bad landscaping. Xeriscaping is one thing. What we too often see around El Paso is ZERO-scaping.

I learned from my friend, Virginia Morris - a Master Master Gardener and immediate past President of the El Paso County Master Gardeners Association - about the Lee and Beulah Moor Children's Home. She is organizing a landscaping project there to do some xeriscaping, a cactus garden and offer greenhouse support. As you can see, a rather ugly ZERO-scaping job was done at some time in the past at the Home:

It's just strips of 1-1/4" rock. To add insult to injury, the "landscaper" put down landscape plastic which, according to Morris, is "impervious to water and oxygen." What she uses is landscape fabric. "The fabric impedes weeds, but lets water and nutrients penetrate through to the soil below," she told me.

Like all ZERO-scaping, these strips contain just rock - no native, desert-adapted plants. Nothing of beauty. Nothing inspiring. No place for children to meditate and find a quiet space where they can reach deep inside themselves and dream.

Virginia's pursuit of a xeriscaping project follows her conversation with Jim Thomas, the Senior Administrator of Development and Activities for the Home. Jim teaches the children about the use of native foods, stresses the need for each child to develop life-sustaining skills and attitudes, and offers them challenges so that they can gain the confidence that they can accomplish what they want to in life. He is currently adding a greenhouse to the school with the help of some local businesses. Children will be able to grow vegetables and then use those plants when they help with the cooking.

I will be writing much more about Jim and the Children's Home especially as we undertake the landscaping and assist in anyway that we can with the greenhouse. (I too am a Master Gardener, a member of the El Paso Cactus and Rock Club, and the El Paso Chapter of the Native Plant Society.) Since one objective of this blog is to write about local food, urban farming and ethnobotany, I'll be following this project.

However, there is far more to the story and today's entry is just a beginning.

Typically children come to the home for a variety of reasons: inability of a parent to provide adequate supervision or care for the child, family economic problems or unemployment, school problems, family violence or discord, difficulty with the child’s acceptance of parental divorce or re-marriage, safety or protection problems for the child in his/her living environment, minor behavioral problems, parental health problems, and so forth.

The Children's Home depends on local support in order to provide a range of services to 65 children currently in residence and their families. Of course, given the current economic conditions, all non-profits require continuing support. Board members of the children's home want El Pasoans to know that "although the economy has made it more difficult to provide basic needs for these children, no child has been sent home, and their needs are being met, largely through the support of people like you."

Your donations are certainly needed and can be done online. They will also take donations of food and you can contact Jim for a list of food that will feed the children. I'll also be publishing those lists online as well.

This story isn't going away. Today is just a start.