Lake Wilderness Elementary is just a short walk from Lake Wilderness Arboretum. One day when inspiration struck Meribeth Rowe it seemed like a natural thing for the school to partner with the arboretum.

“I am a gardener at heart,” said Rowe, a third grade teacher at Lake Wilderness Elementary. “I came to the arboretum for one of their plant sales and I thought, ‘Wow, there could be a really cool connection between the school and the arboretum.’ So, I asked Patty Davis what she thought about having some student gardeners.”

And that’s how the school’s Garden Club started about four years ago.

Work then began on the Ethno Botanical Garden and Trail which is home to native plants used by Northwest Native Americans with bits of educational information scattered around on small sign posts about what the plants were used for.

“At that time they hadn’t decided exactly what it was going to look like but they knew the general location,” Rowe said. “We came out and started clearing the pathway.”

Last year work on the pathway was completed and it was finished just in time for workers to lay gravel down at the end of the school year.

Rowe said students have planted trees, bushes and bulbs throughout the garden which includes sections for edible plants and flora used by Native Americans to make tools out of or weave baskets among other things.

Anywhere from 10 to 20 students walk to the arboretum twice a month after school with Rowe. The club is one of a variety of zero hour classes students can join that are offered before and after school.

Club members spend an hour and a half there during each session. Earlier this week the students pulled weeds and cleared pine cones from areas in the Ethno Botanical Garden as well as cleaned out a flower bed in the nursery.

One section in the garden where they cleared weeds had at one point been covered with blackberry brambles, Rowe said, which took quite a bit of effort to clear out but looking at it now you’d never even know the blackberry bushes were there.

Another project the club worked on was using chipped wood that had built up during a wind storm to mulch throughout the arboretum to help keep the weeds down.

Fifth grader Addison Martoncik spent some time last year during her lunch recess researching native plants but what she enjoys most is going to the arboretum.

“I was in Mrs. Rowe’s class when I was in third grade and I saw it (was offered),” Martoncik said. “I like gardening so I thought I would try it. I like planting. Weeding, that’s not my favorite.”

Peyton Collins, though, said she doesn’t mind even the dirty work and that one of her favorite parts of the after school activity is weeding.

“I am in Mrs. Rowe’s class and I really like gardening with my mom,” Collins said. “I thought it would be a good chance to make new friends.”

Weeding is one of a number of kid-friendly tasks Colby Collier, a member of the arboretum’s board of directors, likes to have the club members work on while they’re visiting.

“They’ve done a lot of planting for us,” Collier said. “They’ve done some great stuff on the Ethno Trail for us. This is a bed here along that fence that everybody sees. We haven’t had a chance to clean it up. You wouldn’t believe it but it had a zillion pine cones in it until the kids got to it.”

Collier said the connection between the club and the arboretum is mutually beneficial.

“It’s a great partnership as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “They not only get to learn about different plants but we get some work done that we don’t have time for ourselves. That’s really helpful to us.”

Rowe said that there are other things the kids get out of the time spent at the arboretum.

“Our school walks over and has field day every year here in the park,” Rowe said. “All the kids walk along the trail and have an opportunity to learn about the plants and the Native Americans. We’re so close and we have such a great appreciation for the arboretum and the people here and the connection.”

Plus it’s an opportunity to teach her students in a fun way about service.

“It’s primarily the connection between the school and the community,” Rowe said. “The community does a lot for the Tahoma School District and this is just a way to give back to the community.”