Plant Rescues Benefit Many in DeKalb County

The Georgia Scoop
Winter 2008

Early one chilly morning in September, eager Master Gardeners rushed to the scene of a planned home demolition to rescue garden plants for their annual spring plant sale.  They were invited by the builder to rescue a broad array of interesting perennials and a few small shrubs from a home site being demolished for construction of a new home.  Members of the DeKalb Master Gardener Association, a group of about 40 Master gardeners and friends, rushed in with shovels, trowels, wheelbarrows, (recycled) pots and a truckload of DeKalb County compost mixed with some native soil to save the plants from the bulldozer.

One of our Master Gardeners became friendly with the builder of her new home, and inspired him with her native landscaping instead of the usual 2 trees and foundation plantings offered by most builders.  The builder has since invited us to rescue plants from gardens when he will demolish an existing home with a nicely planted garden.  We rescue the plants for our annual Spring Plant Sale, which is our yearly fund raiser.

As Master Gardeners, we are excited about saving worthy garden plants from demolition.  We also learn about new plants, see some interesting designs, and get the last look at some lovingly created gardens.  In these years of drought, we know we are saving tough plants that can take the heat and lack of water.  The plants continue to live on in gardens throughout the Atlanta area.

These plant digs are social and educational for our members.  We always see new and interesting plants, and one of us can tell us more about them.  We get a chance to talk about tools, plants that survived, plants that didn’t, and our hopes for rain! We all save plastic pots for these digs.  The planting medium is the free DeKalb County compost (created from the weekly landscape and yard waste pickup and available free to county residents) mixed with some local soil from the site.  We saved almost 200 plants from this mostly shaded garden including hydrangeas, hostas, bletillas, ardisia, variegated liriope and ivy, polygonatum, and ferns galore.