{"id":18737,"date":"2025-04-02T15:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T20:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/?p=18737"},"modified":"2025-04-03T08:57:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T13:57:11","slug":"sustainability-spotlight-lucinda-lhs-gardeners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/2025\/04\/02\/sustainability-spotlight-lucinda-lhs-gardeners\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainability Spotlight: Lucinda Zmarzly & Lincoln High School Gardeners"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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April\u2019s Sustainability Spotlight is shining on Lucinda Zmarzly and student gardeners from Lincoln High School! <\/span><\/p>

Zmarzly, with support from student volunteers and community members, stepped up as the unofficial caretaker of Elliott Elementary school\u2019s garden in 2023. After the garden\u2019s former caretaker moved on from Elliott, the gap in knowledge and attention allowed weeds to spring up throughout the space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Zmarzly and LHS senior, Alykx Wojcik, led the charge to remove the overgrowth and establish new plantings that would help keep new weeds at bay.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Zmarzly and Wojcik enlisted the help of family and friends, as well as garden volunteers from Sheridan Elementary in their summer 2023 cleanup efforts. <\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\u201cWe\u2019re kind of the caregivers until the next big garden advocate at Elliott comes along and wants to take charge of it.\u201d\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLucinda Zmarzly<\/cite>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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With the weeds out of the way, Zmarzly\u2019s attention turned to the future. She and other volunteers planted low maintenance, pollinator-friendly plants including buffalo grass, larkspur, sunflowers and zinnias. These plantings served to both beautify the space and to preserve the gardeners\u2019 weed removal efforts.<\/span><\/p>

\u201cThe first year, it was mainly about what cover crops we can put in so it\u2019s not as much of a mess in the spring,\u201d Zmarzly said. \u201cIt only takes a season for a garden to get completely overgrown.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Spring of 2024 arrived and Zmarzly began working with Elliott\u2019s Community Learning Center to bring parents and other community members back into the space. <\/span><\/p>

Seven families participating in the Family Literacy Program signed on to begin growing food in the garden\u2019s raised beds. Each family received coaching on where resources like the watering keys were located, and then had free rein to grow anything they liked.<\/span><\/p>

Wojcik said that part of his role that summer included filling in to water, weed, and harvest the family-led raised beds if their usual caretaker was unable to do so. <\/span><\/p>

While continuing to support the space, he said that he was able to see Family Literacy Program gardeners and their children enjoying the garden, as well as CLC groups and Elliott students at outdoor recess.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"Yard
Yard waste bags in Elliott's freshly weeded space,<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Sunflowers
Sunflowers create a pathway to explore<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Raspberries
Raspberries from the previous gardeners' work<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
\"Lincoln
Lincoln High's vegetable bed at Elliott<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>
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\u201cIt\u2019s really nice to see someone look at a flower and go \u201cOh my gosh, that\u2019s so pretty!\u201d and then run and tell their friends to come see,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>

While cleaning up the space was the initial priority, Zmarzly said she also advocates for flexibility within gardens. In not meticulously planning every square inch, future gardeners will have the freedom to make the space their own. The work of Elliott\u2019s former gardeners hasn\u2019t been lost, either.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cWhoever started the garden at Elliott planted some really nice things, like raspberries and prairie plants,\u201d she said. \u201cMore and more of these plants come to light every season as we keep the space weeded.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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It has been so exciting to see gardeners from Lincoln High School step up to support a nearby garden in need! We are grateful for the incredible example of dedication, energy and community-building that has grown out of this garden revitalization project.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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April\u2019s Sustainability Spotlight is shining on Lucinda Zmarzly and student gardeners from Lincoln High School! Zmarzly, with support from student volunteers and community members, stepped up as the unofficial caretaker of Elliott Elementary school\u2019s garden in 2023. After the garden\u2019s former caretaker moved on from Elliott, the gap in knowledge and attention allowed weeds to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12136,"featured_media":18743,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/files\/2025\/04\/IMG_1164.jpg?fit=2016%2C1512&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5XcXY-4Sd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18737"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18800,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18737\/revisions\/18800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/home.lps.org\/sustainability\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}