Coeur d'Alene Garden Club grant supports Lake City High garden project

COEUR d'ALENE — Students in the outdoor studies program, Coeur d'Alene Garden Club members and some happy honeybees gathered in the Lake City High School xeriscape garden Monday afternoon as final touches were added.

The students and garden club members have been working together the past several months to replant and revive the little garden that was first planted to the north of the school entrance about 13 years ago.

“This is a huge project for me,” said junior Emily Zuetrong. “I want to be a firefighter, so I love being out in the environment and doing all these things and having this here."

Bright yellow gold finger potentilla, autumn fire sedum, Rocky Mountain penstemon and other species of pollinator-friendly flowers and shrubs comprise the xeriscape, which is a method of landscaping that conserves water by using drought-tolerant plants and efficient irrigation.

The project was made possible thanks to a $1,500 grant from the Coeur d'Alene Garden Club. The funds were split between the school's xeriscape garden and greenhouse programs. The club donated and delivered four large basalt sitting stools for the new garden and donated funds for Sue Bockelman, the Plant Pro, to work with garden club classes on landscape design under the direction of outdoor studies teachers Jamie Esler and Eric Edmonds.

“We came several months ago and looked at the garden and thought, ‘Wow, it’s beautiful, we can do more with it and we can also add those lovely stools so that you can be in it instead of just looking at it,’” Coeur d'Alene Garden Club Community Projects Committee Co-Chair Cheryl Christensen said. 

She encouraged the students to enjoy the hard work they’ve done in this garden.

"Do some reflection and enjoy nature while you’re here,” she said to the students. “We’re so, so happy you took this on with a lot of vigor and look what you did!”

Junior Emerson Rakes said it's amazing how the garden club has supported the students and their projects.

“I’ve seen so many people sitting on the stools, just reading the names and not knowing there was a garden club, learning about it,” she said. “It’s really important to me to be like, ‘This garden is going to last the same amount of time as the last one lasted,’ so we’re trying to create a service for the next class of outdoor studies program and the next class of people that are going to come in.”

“It was just a really interesting way to get outdoors and learn more, especially about the environment and how all these plants play a bigger role with the ecosystem,” junior Matthew King said.

Esler thanked the garden club members for their generosity.

"We're so thankful we got the grant to pay for all this," he said.

He commended the students for their hard work and dedication.

“Out of the 18 years I’ve been teaching, these are the most motivated kids I’ve ever taught, and they’ve been like that since they were freshmen,” he said. “When they walked in as freshmen, it was like someone handed me the keys to a Ferrari and said, ‘We’ll be back in 2026 to pick it up.’ They are incredible. They work this hard on everything we do.”

    Coeur d'Alene Garden Club Community Projects Committee Co-Chair Cheryl Christensen shares some gardening wisdom Monday with Lake City High junior Emerson Rakes as final touches are placed on the school's xeriscape garden.
  

    Lake City High junior Emily Zuetrong shares her love of the outdoors Monday as the last work is conducted on the school's xeriscape garden.
  

    Junior Landon Oxenrider dumps landscaping gravel into the xeriscape garden Monday at Lake City High School.
  

    A honeybee buzzes along purrsian blue flowers Monday in the Lake City High School xeriscape garden.