Lighthouse School to host unique gardening fundraiser

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY David Wheeler will be the special speaker in the garden of the late David Halberstam during a gala dinner prepared by Nantucket Catering Company. Nantucket Lighthouse School board member Connie Umberger thought of a clever and useful idea to draw patrons to financially aid the new, expanded school on Rugged Road.

From Thursday, July 23 through Saturday, July 25, the school will host "Sowing the Seeds," a garden festival featuring knowledgeable speakers, gardening demonstrations, workshops and seminars, children's programs, a garden marketplace and enjoyable and informative garden tours with luncheon included. It is a concept she and the event committee anticipate will appeal to the island's many avid gardeners.

"I hope it will be successful," said Umberger, a seasoned gardener in her own right. "Given the economic climate, highpriced things aren't necessarily appropriate, and given the Lighthouse School's long term interest in using gardens as an educational tool, by having a garden theme we could extend that concept and present it to the community at large.

The gardens at the Lighthouse School. "There is a changing interest in the way we do things and we all need to learn how to do things organically and in a way that will sustain our environment," she continued. "We felt this is something that will attract people to a learning experience that will be fun and festive, and more meaningful than a big bash.

"It is more than just the school, which is an important force in the community and contributes so much," said Umberger. "Support of the school is essential because the children of Nantucket are the potential future of the island."

The Lighthouse School has its own garden filled with vegetables, herbs and flowering plants such as nasturtiums, that the students plant, tend and cultivate. School co-founder and director of education Lizbet Carroll Fuller explained that gardening is integral to the school curriculum in that children understand their relationship with the earth, how their food originates and how to care for the earth's vital, nurturing element.

"It is physical, it's grounding, it's calming and it is educational in terms of our home. It's a survival tool," she said of the school's gardening program. "It is how I take care of the earth and in turn the earth takes care of me. It underscores a child's ability to understand the natural world."

The pre-school class plants the early crops such as spinach, peas, radishes and lettuce, and sees the results of their efforts quite quickly. The kindergarten children study farming and gardening in alternate years linked to learning about the island's Wampanoag Indians, and plant corn, beans and squash. The students in grades one and two alternately study old Nantucket and the Pilgrims, and plant medicinal herbs and flowers. The children in grades three through six are in charge of ordering seeds and distributing them to the appropriate classes. They also tend to most of the seedlings started indoors before they are transplanted into the garden and plant assorted vegetables and flowers when the weather outside is compatible for those varieties.

"It is celebrating the art of tending the earth," said Fuller, adding that even the larger new facility for the private day school is "bursting at the seams" because of its growing popularity with parents of young children.

Umberger and the rest of the event committee composed of Mimi Beman, Cary Hazlegrove, Sydney Fee, Lizbet Carroll Fuller, who co-founded the school with Elizabeth Sundell, and Cheryl Evans, the school's administrative director, met nearly every week since last fall to plan the event. Umberger, a former educator and imaginative gardener, reached out to her contacts in the national and international horticultural world to bring the committee's plans to fruition.

The event opens on Thursday evening, July 23 with a preview party from 6 to 8 p.m. on the school grounds with Holly Shimizu as keynote speaker. This event is also the patrons' first look at the marketplace and silent auction items, complete with libations and appetizers catered by Carl Keller and Jim Perelman.

Shimizu is executive director of Washington, D.C.'s U.S. Botanical Gardens. She has hosted the PBS "Victory Garden" TV show and has worked in many of the great public gardens in Britain and Europe. The American Horticultural Society honored her with its Professional Award in 2008.

Friday night from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., David Wheeler will be the special speaker in the garden of the late David Halberstam during a gala dinner prepared by Nantucket Catering Company. Wheeler recently received the Veitch Memorial Medal, one of the highest honors bestowed by Britain's Royal Horticultural Society for persons who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement and improvement of the science of horticulture. He is a regular contributing writer for many respected gardening magazines and journals.

Earlier on Friday, there will be ongoing workshops and lectures featuring Kathy and Chris Tracey with their class on creating faux stone planters; Ellen Hornig, owner of Senaca Hill Perennials, speaking on growing tender plants in harsh climates; Janice Shields, of Cut It Out in Stockbridge, Mass., demonstrating how to craft trellises from natural materials and a lecture on groundcover plants by Karen Perkins Probst of Garden Visions.

From 11:15 a.m to 3 p.m., Michael May, executive director of Nantucket Preservation Trust, will lead a tour of four private flower gardens that end at the home of Polly and John Espy. Lunch will be catered by Sarah Leah Chase.

At 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. on Friday, Michael Nadeau, who in 1982 co-founded Plantscapes, will present a seminar on landscaping organically.

Also Friday, there is a free demonstration on stone walls by the Nantucket Plantsmen lasting from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Saturday's schedule starts with a beekeeping seminar with David Berry of Nantucket HoneyBee Company from 9 to 10 a.m., and moves on to "Thinking Like a Seed" by Ellen Hornig from 10 to 11 a.m. At the same time, from 9 to 11 a.m., people may opt to visit Kathy and Chris Tracey for their Hypertufa, faux planters workshop.

At 11:15 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Russ and Marian Morash will host a vegetable garden tour and luncheon with lunch catered by The Chanticleer, where there will also be a tour of the French restaurant's organic garden. Russ Morash has produced and directed the PBS series "The Victory Garden," and his wife is a master chef and cookbook author.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday there will be a surprise garden visit. Patrons will be given the address "to go look." The afternoon ends when, from 3 to 4 p.m., there will be a raffle under a tent on the school grounds.

The garden marketplace runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. Vendors will include Lisa Whitney's botanical prints; specialty plants from Broken Arrow in Connecticut; vintage garden items from Nantucket's English Trunk Show; garden sculptures from Jill Nooney of New Hampshire;

special products from Matt Grivner's Connecticut-based "From Farm to Market;" groundcovers from Karen Perkins Probst; woven goods by islander Allison Herr; gardening books from Mitchell's Book Corner; hard-to-find plants brought by Ed Bowen of Opus in Rhode Island; antique and vintage textiles from New Jersey's Susan Oostdyk; vintage garden accessories from Debra Queen of South Dartmouth, Mass.; Steven Snyder's garden sculptures; English cottage garden antiques brought by Anne Rowe of Sugarplum Antiques; Islander Cinda Gaynor's eclectic mix of garden odds and ends; native, woven material garden accents and useful fixtures by Janice Shields and Wolff pottery. Pieces from Guy Wolff were purchased by the school expressly for sale at the market. He is considered the foremost potter in the U.S. today, with examples at Winterthur and Monticello, and created an exclusive pot just for the island garden festival.

While all these activities are taking place for adults, children will have many things to engage them, as well. On Friday from 9 to 10:15 a.m. they will literally feather nests, then from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. kids can craft a mosaic flower pot. Both Friday activities are geared to children ages six to 12. On Saturday, from 9 to 10:15 a.m. there will be a session on creating a miniature fairy garden. From 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. kids can make a sun print pillow, and during a simultaneous class kids can build a wooden birdhouse. The fairy garden and pillow sessions are for ages six to 12 and the birdhouse project is geared to children eight to 12.

The Nantucket Lighthouse School opened in September 2000 with a mission to educate the whole child, "Head, heart and hand." At that time it had just a dozen students and two teachers. Today the student population totals more than 70 children and there are eight classroom teachers. Based on the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the Lighthouse School's educational path cultivates children's imaginations, and their relationships to themselves, others and the world community. This philosophy inspires compassion, kindness, love and consideration with a feeling of joyful responsibility toward all living creatures and respect for the earth that sustains them. The school has a non-discriminatory admissions policy. Limited financial assistance for tuition is available to qualifying families.

For more information on obtaining tickets for any of the "Sowing the Seeds" events, go to nantucketgardenfestival.org or call Cheryl Evans at the school at 508-228-0427. I