For the last two years, my school (together with the other middle school next door and the high school) has a Campus Clean-up each spring. Sponsored by the Go Green club at my school, we've steadily decreased the amount of litter around campus.

The first year, 2009, we took two pickup trucks to the dump- full of litter.
Last year, 2010, we took only one.
This year, we took none. Everything we picked up could fit in our school recycling bins!

With little trash left, last year we decided to work on some of the gardens along with picking up trash.They were overgrown, ugly, and not a welcoming sight!

This year, we focused wholly on the gardens. There is one garden in particular, right in front of the entrance to the school, that we had been digging wild onions and weeds out of since I started the Go Green club back in 2009. Now that this was my last year here, my last year as a Go Greenie, I claimed this garden for my personal "farewell" project. I wanted to make it beautiful, to show the pride I have in our school.

Along with my mom and another student, we dug out about a foot of soil and weeds. Those pesky wild onions kept coming back, and with every inch we found some more! But eventually we had them gone.

We mixed peat moss into the existing soil, and then ALOT of water. What people don't realize is, that peat moss has just about no nutrients of it's own. It can be used as a filler, and that's how we used it.

Since it was SO dry with the peat moss mixed in, we used ALOT of water. It began to look like soup!

After we had everything mixed, we placed the perennials we had first. Of course now I've forgotten what they were, but I know some of them were Black Eyed Susans-the Maryland state flower.

Planting was absolutely the best part, and I was the only one who didn't wear gloves! We soon had the flowers planted, and it was time to mulch.

I wanted to put the finishing touches on, so I mulched the bed and cleaned up around the concrete.

Finally, after two and a half years, the garden was there and there to stay! Hopefully I can come back next year to visit, as I won't be going to my district high school.

This garden might not look professional, but I didn't want it to. It's beautiful to me, with all the hard work, dirty fingernails, and energy put into it!