From Zebras to Bacons&Everything In Between: Planting Day

On June 1st, UAF had it's annual Planting Day. Since I work on Campus during the summer, I have participated in planting day for now 3 years! and it's actually one of my favorite days on campus =]

So you may ask "What is planting day?" UAF has tons and tons of planters all over campus. Some wonderful people on campus get together and organize Planting Day, and basically, UAF staff and faculty members, and even community members, volunteer their time to fill the planters with tons of plants so that when students return in the Fall, there will be lots of pretty flowers.

As simple as it seems, a lot of planning is involved in such a large scale event, especially one that relies on volunteers to do the majority of the work. The sad part is, besides the people that work hard to make it all happen, no one else knows how much work goes into it. But they definitely do a wonderful job being super organized!

When the volunteers get to the planter, everything they need is ready for them. All the plants are delivered with tags on them so it is easy to identify each plant. A chart of how the plants should be planted is also provided. The Charts are super easy to understand too. They use several different icons to identify each plant, and also tells the volunteers how far apart each plant should be.

Anyways, a bit about my experience with the planting this year... As other years, I planted flowers with my Wood Center family. I was the designated chart reader this year, meaning I gave directions to everyone in the crew what to plant where. and I must say i did a pretty good job =] The whole experience was great because we had such a blast planting and just having a chill time. Our 2 hour planting experience consisted of "stealing" flowers from other planters (when we didn't have enough), watching babies act silly, digging in and getting dirty, and of course, tons of laughter! It was a nice little break form all the office work we do cooped up inside our offices. It was like the family became even closer =] Oh and I should mention how nice it was outside on Planting Day! It was a perfect day for gardening! I definitely got my tan on =]

Oh, a little tip for anyone that's thought about planting for the first time, never attempt planting in your shoes. I had my comfy TOMS on and as soon as i stepped on the dirt, I got some in my shoes =( but then I took my shoes off and it felt awesome!

Hopefully you'll all notice the wonderful flowers that are blossomed in the Fall!