The plants displayed all over West Ranch campus features greenery that is carefully orchestrated. From flowers to trees, the grounds staff works extensively to provide the care and attention each plant needs to create a beautiful and natural environment at West Ranch High School.
The gardener of West Ranch, Mr. Ed Barrera, plans and implements the greenery around campus with approval from Principal Fisher. Mr. Barrera makes sure that each plant receives proper care: “I have to make sure the water comes when it’s supposed to, and clear around the plants so the plant is healthy.”
When it came to choosing the right plants to bloom around school, Mr. Barrera mentioned that “There are Rock Rose, the flowers that are around the buildings that are blooming right now.” The Rock Roses are very tolerant towards heat or drought, and generally appear in pink, white or yellow. Furthermore, the trees that provide shade and a clean, breathable environment for West Ranch students were prepared for installation by “cleaning the weeds, making room for the plants, then redoing the irrigation system so the bubblers were touching the roots.”
Further diving into the irrigation system, the underground watering process involves inputting the right timing of providing water to the plants: “It’s a pipe underneath, and we have a timer that controls the valve, and when the time comes, the valve opens the water and then it waters for two minutes to three minutes directly to the plant,” Mr. Barrera informed.
Another method to supply water is by surrounding the plant with mulch: a mixture of bark, wood chips and leaves. “The mulch is from the district; we usually put it down on the plants to keep the moisture, [so the plants] grow better,” Mr. Barrera explained. But it is not just about moisture control. The mulch also prevents weeds from growing and regulates temperatures suitable for the plant for the best results.
Mr. Barrera and his partner, Mr. Noe Hernandez, are the two official groundskeepers of West Ranch, working full-time to mow, irrigate, trim and care for the campus greenery to create visually pleasing and neat premises.
West Ranch United States History and Government teacher, Ms. Arrowsmith is a consistent gardener, with plants and flowers in her backyard. Ten years ago, Ms. Arrowsmith was placed in room 408, where the plant beds were filled with dead flowers. Previously, the sprinklers in the plant bed broke, resulting in floods that filled the area. As a result, the school stopped the sprinklers. Ms. Arrowsmith, at the time, had approached the assistant principal and claimed she would tend to the plants if the sprinklers were fixed. Now, there is a colorful array of flowers, with roses, star jasmine, rosemary and shrubs.
The story behind Ms. Arrowsmith’s love of roses stems from her childhood, when “[her] mom always had a lot of rose bushes around the front and the backyard and that’s something that [she] got from her.” Currently, Ms. Arrowsmith has multiple rows of rose bushes in her back and front yard.
Ms. Arrowsmith expressed her passion for gardening, saying it is “a lot of fun to see what comes of it and to see when everything’s in bloom.” Additionally, she continues to describe that her plant project was “to make something more attractive because when I was looking out that window, all I saw was a stucco wall and a patch of dirt and that is not okay. It has to be prettier, it has to be beautiful.”
Over a couple of days, Ms. Arrowsmith gathered all her supplies and started planting new seeds along the flower bed. She dug up the ground and planted the flowers, tending to them ever since. Ms. Arrowsmith says, “All I really do is deadhead the roses and hard prune.” Deadheading the roses involves clipping off faded roses to improve the plant’s chances of new flowers, preventing seed formation and updating the appearance. Hard pruning, on the other hand, is shaping shrubs to the main stems, mainly to cut back overgrown plants.
Principal Fisher is always on the lookout for improvement in the campus’s flower beds. He focuses on the “plants that haven’t survived and some areas where it could possibly be refreshed.” The California dryness declines the health of plants as the irrigation evaporates and less water is delivered to the greenery.
However, opportunities arise where the dried plants have faltered. “We’ve been trying to refresh our planters that currently exist and trimming back some of the bushes to promote some of the new growth and new flowers for our plants,” Mr. Fisher explained. New, flourishing plants replace dead ones through improved methods, learned from previous unsuccessful experiences.
As students enter and leave high school, the campus grows alongside them, offering a bright welcome to incoming freshmen and a swaying goodbye to graduating seniors. The beauty found within the campus is rooted firmly in the dedication of the West Ranch staff.
