Spring Pictures

Spring flowers emerging at the garden!

Snow is taking over in March!

Flowers are beginning to bloom :)

Beautiful flowers

March Madness

There have been many exciting things happening at the garden this month!  The most recent happening was a sundial dedication on Sunday.  The sundial was dedicated to honor Springfield resident Charlotte Collier. Charlotte will be turning 90-years-old next week! Another project that is currently in the works at the Garden is the start of the Master Gardeners' Kitchen Garden.  Lettuce and carrots are the two plants that the center is focusing on planting this week.  One belief workers at the Garden all share is that animals are not a nuisance. Wildlife is part of the attraction to the park so instead of being angry that animals are eating some of the plants, the gardeners plan ahead and plant an extra row.  An important upcoming even for the Garden is a free presentation at 6 P.M. entitled Alpha Meadows: Creating a Garden in the Ozarks 2000-2012. Another exciting event is Katie's Arbor First Friday with Friends on April 5th at 10 A.M. where she will teach the basics of aboretum.  A final upcoming event is the Bonsai Workshop which is presented by the Friends of the Garden.  It is this Saturday April 6th from 1-2:30 at the Springfield Botanical Center in the workshop.  The workshop will focus on how to prune and shape plants in the bonsai tradition.  Our group is looking forward to helping plant flowers and vegetables this month for the Garden! We have been working well as a team deciding which events work for us all to attend in April!

Freezing February!

The Botanical Center is open year-round and continues to host events throughout the winter season.  The biggest project this year at the garden was finishing phase two of the Winter Garden.  The Winter Garden is about an acre wide and it is the biggest garden in the park.  The project ended up costing $27,000 total.  Friends of the Garden membership fees are what paid for the majority of the garden.  The park is two-thirds completed and will finished in the near future.  The reason for the construction of the Winter Garden is to promote year-round visitation of the park.  One challenge that our group has had this semester so far is finding time to volunteer at the Garden. Although we have the time available, there is not much that needs to be done during this season.  When the spring season gets closer though, there will a lot of planting to accomplish.  We can't wait to see all of the flowers in bloom!

Share a leadership quote and a personal accomplishment this semester

My favorite leadership quote is from Max DePree, "The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant."  I love this quote because it emphasizes the importance of service and not asserting power over others.  My favorite leader is Martin Luther King Jr.  His rise to the top did not come from rallying people with anger or suppressing them.  He gained followers by seeing the needs in his community and helping these people himself.  I want to be the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily without needing a title or a weapon, just like MLK.  I also love this quote because it stresses that leadership requires thanking people. No one succeeds in life without some help from others and I  believe being thankful for these people is a key to success and shows true integrity.  One thing that I have personally accomplished this semester is winterizing the master garden.  This sounds like a trivial task, but in actuality, it took a lot of work and help from others.  One of the tasks needed to complete this project was pulling all of the tomato and pepper plants out of the ground so that new ones could grow in next spring.  This also helped the garden look more appeasing and once the dead plants were gone a passerby could see the beautiful plants that were still alive but previously hidden.  Another task completed in the master garden was pulling up all the shrubs surrounding the garden.  There were about 30 of these creating the perimeter.  Next, I trimmed all the banana plants so that they would not rot over the winter break.  I had to use a pretty large knife to complete this task and it was very fun but pretty time consuming.  Finally, I hauled all the material gathered in this garden to the compost pile.

Pictures from our semester!

Reflection

I have loved working with the Botanical Center this semester!  I have learned how important it is to preserve things for future generations.  For example, when I was gardening in the master garden with Christine, I saw there were $500 reward signs up for information on stolen plants.  People were coming to the garden and stealing entire tomato and pepper plants.  Volunteers usually have to raise funds for these plants so Friends of the Garden were upset that people would just steal what wasn't theirs.  If everyone did this then there wouldn't be any plants for anyone to enjoy at the park.  I have also learned from this experience how important it is for everyone to contribute to projects.  If one person decided that they didn't want to plant bulbs one day or another person decided they didn't want to pull weeds, the plants really suffer in the following season. It is essential for each team member to do their part so that the park can prosper.  The positive outcomes have been learning how to work hard with a group of people who have different leadership styles to accomplish the same goal.  I plan to focus on getting other organizations to volunteer here in the spring. It is rewarding and fun work and I think people can really learn a lot about themselves and others by volunteering here!

Halloween Post

In this week's Summit class, we discussed different forms of conflict management styles.  The different styles were: collaborating owl, avoiding turtle, competing shark, accommodating teddy bear, and compromising fox.  My highest scoring category was the accommodating teddy bear followed by the avoiding turtle.  I thought my results were very fitting because teddy bears value relationships above their own goals.  This can be a strength when there is a small/nearly insignificant conflict because a teddy bear will not be caught up in trying to be right and ruin a friendship because of it.  On the other hand, being a teddy bear can be stressful because I avoid telling someone that I have a problem with them for fear of damaging our relationship.  One thing that might help me become a better leader is remembering that solving conflicts can help strengthen a relationship.  If there is something that is bothering me, getting it off of my chest instead of keeping it bottled up will show the other person that I trust them to come to me when they have a problem as well.  One weakness of an avoiding turtle, my second highest conflict management style, is that we will allow someone to walk all over us before telling them that we have a problem.  I think it would be safe to say that turtles are taken advantage of often because of their unwillingness to stand up for themselves. 
The most important information I learned from this presentation was that the idea we have that conflict is always bad is wrong.  There will always be conflicts between people and finding a solution to that conflict will help to strengthen relationships.  Now that I have this information, I am going to strive to be more like a compromising fox so each person in the conflict gives a little to reach a happy medium that works for both parties.  This presentation will help me to become a better leader in the future now that I am more aware of the strengths and weaknesses of my conflict managament style.