Power Nature Club Spruces Up the School

Members of new Nature Club and other volunteers hauled a lot of mulch Saturday morning.

The group, which also included students from Botsford Elementary in Livonia, and , painted arbors and spruced up the garden that spreads across the front and wraps around the side of the building. In addition to flowering plants and trees, there's a small herb garden, benches and bird houses.

Mulch for the garden was donated by Power parent Bob LaFontaine.

Nature Club parent coordinator Lynn Halton said the garden was planted six years ago.

"When we started the garden, it was very small," she said. "It's neat that all these years later, it's still here."

Halton said club members may also plant vegetables this year, with families invited to harvest the produce.

The garden is also now the keeper of some Farmington Public Schools history: bricks and about 300 flowers from Flanders Elementary School, which closed last year, have been transplanted there, Halton said.

The Nature Club also received information about the four animals the club adopted through the National Wildlife Federation, with funds raised through a special "Animal Days" promotion at the school last month. Part of the money also went to purchase bird seed for the feeders in the garden.

Halton's daughter Amanda Balogh, a sixth-grader, said she recruited her friends for the club. They all enjoy being around nature, whether it's animals or plants.

At the Animal Days fundraiser, sixth-grader Leila Mullison said she got into the club in part because she wanted to spend time with her friends.

"I love the garden," Mullison said. "It looks so pretty, and I wanted to help with that."