Girl Scouts Forever Green at 100 Years

HOUSTON - Over the weekend, Houston played host to a national Girl Scout convention. Many of these young ladies visited the Houston Arboretum.

“Girl Scouts USA is celebrating their 100-year anniversary by sponsoring a program call Forever Green,” Houston Arboretum Conservation Director Joe Blanton said. “Part of the initiative of Forever Green is to reduce and eliminate the use of plastic in your every day life. So rather than give the girls plastic planting pots, we’re actually having them recycle used newspaper and fold it into a 4” pot using principles of origami. That they will then fill with soil and plant a see of a grain garden plant that they can take home with them.”

Before they head home, they’re helping to build several rain gardens by planting over 500 plants. These thirsty new plants won’t have to worry too much about the drought or watering restrictions.

The Girl Scouts are painting a mural on a brand new cistern which collects rain water off the roof of the nature center.

The tank is 2,500 gallons and a 1-inch rain event will provide 800 gallons to this reservoir. The water can be used for the plants when they need it most.

Since this is a national convention, most of the Girl Scouts are from out of town, but the work they leave behind is here for you to enjoy and learn from.

“From this partnership with Girl Scouts USA,” Blanton said. “We’ve been able to establish a variety of demonstration gardens as well as a rain tank that the public can come out and see exactly how it functions to capture rain when it does rain and being able to use it at their discretion in between rainfall events.”

The Houston Arboretum is a great place to learn about making rain barrels and how they care for their many gardens while following all the current watering restrictions.

The Houston Arboretum is open 7 days a week from sun up to sun down.

More on the web:

http://www.houstonarboretum.org/