The students in the Chancellor Livingston Elementary School environmental club are starting to see the results of the long process in creating their sensory garden.
“It’s coming along very well since the first day of planning,” said fifth grader Aubree Fraleigh. “It’s very cool to see it come off the paper and be on the actual ground. I just want to see how it grows throughout the years when I’m not here.”
Fraleigh and Theo Calvert will be attending Bulkeley Middle School in the 2025-2026 school, but are planning to visit the garden after moving up from the elementary school.
“I think it’s really fun,” Calvert said of the process. “I remember when we first started designing it and said these are the ideas. Now, there is a garden.
“I’m really happy with what we’ve done so far. Being the first ones to start designing it and seeing all of it come together, I really like it because it’s a cool process.”
A sensory garden will have a variety of elements for visitors to explore and use their senses such as flowers, plants, herbs, wind spinners and birdhouses with cameras. Benches are being planned for visitors to sit and enjoy the garden.
The sensory garden is part of a garden behind the school that features six raised beds for planting flowers, plants, fruits and vegetables. Four should be filled before the end of the school year.
Teacher Scott Stilverson, adviser for the environmental club, has been working with Kaitlyn Doherty of the garden committee and Ashley Gamell, ecological landscape designer, to put the landscape together for the sensory garden.
The goal is for the garden to have 10 percent annual plants and 90 percent perennial plants.
A few months ago, the sensory garden was just a 22 feet by 22 feet dirtbed. The environmental club received a $5,000 grant from the Rhinebeck Science Foundation.
The sensory garden now has plants and a stone walking path.
“The grant has helped us start putting it together and making it interactive because we want it to be a calming and educational place,” said Stiverson. “It’s exciting to see where we’re at. It’s a lot of work, but it’s more fun to see the progress.
“I’m learning a lot about gardening.”
Stiverson is excited to see the sensory garden’s continued progress, but added the work will never end.
“It’s never going to be completed because it going to be constantly growing and changing,” he said. “I don’t want to put an end date on it, but it’s going to be usable by the fall.”