A Visit to the Three Sisters Gardens

By Taylor Edwards

Scattered around Greenbelt, Maryland, are the Three Sisters Gardens. Each garden has its own unique charm, but they all serve one purpose. I had the opportunity to visit two of the three of these gardens and see their charms.

History of the Three Sisters Gardens

The Three Sisters Gardens of Greenbelt (West, Center, and East) Demonstration Community Gardens Project was created by the Chesapeake Education, Arts, and Research Society (CHEARS) when the organization received a grant in 2010.

Although the gardens are in different places, they all share one common goal: community. All three gardens provide sustainable gardening opportunities; promote co-learning among volunteers; and offer opportunities for educational, artistic, and research proj- ects. They also welcome members of all ages and promote permaculture.

Each year, the gardens have a theme. For the 2022–2023 year, the theme is “The Global Local Imperative for a Great Food Transition for Plant Survival and Climate Justice.” The three gardens also are based on Indigenous culture, including their structure and what produce is important there, such as corn, beans, and squash.

Each garden has its own coordinator. Their influences give each garden its own personality. Maggie Cahalan, the co-founder of CHEARS, is the coordinator of the Three Sisters Garden-Center at the Greenbelt Community Center. Effie Levner, an occupational therapist, is the coordinator of Three Sisters Garden-East at Schrom Hills Park. Carolyn Lambright-Davis is the coordinator of Three Sisters Garden-West at the Springhill Lake Recreation Center.

Three Sisters Gardens–West

After walking behind the Springhill Lake Recreation Center, you’ll find a circular garden with a statue in the middle. The center is also home to the Food Forest surrounding it. Three Sisters GardenWest is unique because of its primarily young volunteers. The Earth Squad is a co-learning and tutoring project by CHEARS consisting of mostly local elementary school students. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, the kids come to the center and help nurture the plants there under Lambright-Davis’ guidance.

“We’re with children, so we have color [in the garden]. We want to have fun,” Lambright-Davis said. “You’ve got to start them young.”

Rectangular planters are set in a circle with various plants growing in them. All of them are written on with paint and some have small drawings of plants on them. The Earth Squad painted the sides of the planters as well. In the middle of the garden is a medicine wheel that is reminiscent of Indigenous gardens.

“We walk the medicine wheel for peace, for love, for happiness, for protection,” Lambright-Davis said.

The statue stands about 5 feet tall and has wildlife carved on it. It depicts a tree with an owl perched on top. Leaves are carved into it. At the base of the tree is a big squash that curves up under the owl. On the side of the tree grows corn. On the very bottom of the statue, you can see beans.

The garden currently grows collard greens, field peas, potatoes, romaine lettuce, blackberries, beets, strawberries, and more. When asked what their favorite thing to grow was, the kids said strawberries. Lambright-Davis commented that they’re “pumpkin connoisseurs” because of how many pumpkins grow there in the fall.

The garden also has two containers of books for volunteers to read and seeds they can take home.

The food forest surrounding the garden was planted in the spring of 2013 by CHEARS and the City of Greenbelt. It is a permaculture technique that helps create a sustainable food system. One of the plants that are prominent in the forest are pawpaw trees. Signs are placed around the forest so visitors and the Earth Squad can learn about the environment.

The garden was devastated by a storm in July and August of 2022, but they’re slowly building it back up. They lost a pawpaw tree, but it was replaced by the city.

The special thing about this garden is that the kids can be proud of what they’ve grown and take that knowledge back to their homes. “This is really a system of children. That’s the beauty of them,” said Lambright-Davis.

Three Sisters Gardens–East

When you walk past the playground at Schrom Hills Park, you’ll find the Three Sisters Garden-East tucked away in a corner. What makes this garden different is its focus on aesthetics instead of just the physical part of gardening.

Its design mirrors an Indigenous garden, with four entrances that represent north, south, east, and west. Each entrance has a bamboo gateway with some vines on top. On the outside of the garden, there are laminated photos of flowers on display from people of the community. Levner said that when the garden was first established, it didn’t have as many artistic elements and plants as it does now. When she first took charge of the garden, she wanted to focus on the aesthetic part of it rather than the actual gardening.

“It’s not just physical activity to come and grow vegetables. I really think that you have to grow your own inner spirit and mental health,” said Levner. Because Levner is an occupational therapist, she focuses on the way that people feel when they come to the garden. To do this, the garden hosts poetry readings and has poetry displayed throughout the space. She calls the atmosphere “divine” because some people come to the garden to pray.

“People could respond to poetry. It’s about feeling. It’s a completely different orientation,” Levner said.

When you first walk up to the garden, you see the Three Sisters Garden-East metal statue, shaped like a harvest tree, on the left. When you enter, you are greeted by a large archway with three dangling rings in the middle. Each white planter around the garden has artwork placed in front of it. If you look closely enough, you’ll see small figurines planted among the shrubs. The garden is filled with various flowers so butterflies and bees can pollinate and add to the atmosphere.

At one entrance, there are two minilibraries where people can pick up books to read in the garden. Next to the libraries are a small table and chairs where people can sit and enjoy their books. As you continue through the garden, you’ll find a display of plants and figurines with poems next to them written by members of the community. On the other side of the garden, you can see pictures of past visitors of the garden as well as a visitor’s guide.

Levner wants the garden, to be a place where people can find peace and happiness by enjoying the environment and talking with each other. She encourages people to come out into nature more, especially because of how the pandemic isolated people inside their homes. With the added layer of poetry, books, and the atmosphere, the garden is a great place to slow down from everyday life.

Visiting the Gardens

The Three Sisters Gardens are open to the public. They are located at Springhill River Recreation Center, Schrom Hills Park, and Greenbelt Community Center. Contact information for any of the coordinators can be found on the CHEARS website (https://chears.org/). Poetry events are coming up on July 9 and August 6 at Schrom Hills Park. o

Taylor Edwards is a rising senior majoring in journalism with a minor in Black Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland. She is a native of Waldorf, MD, and an intern this summer with Washington Gardener.

National Rose Month

June is National Rose Month, and the American Rose Society (ARS) is honoring the flower with a full month of events. Headquartered in Shreveport, LA, the ARS is a national nonprofit organization founded in 1892 and dedicated exclusively to the culture, appreciation, and preservation of the rose. Members host rose shows and educational seminars, maintain public gardens, support research of the newest and disease-resistant varieties of roses, provide arrangements and flowers for hundreds of local events, and strive to share their enjoyment of the rose.

Roses have a long and colorful history. They have been used to symbolize love, beauty, war, and peace. They are the subject of art, music, literature, and poetry. On November 20, 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed a resolution making the rose the national floral emblem at a ceremony in the White House.

The American Rose Society suggests the following ways to enjoy roses:

1. Plant a rose bush! Need help? Go to www.rose.org to learn more.

2. Take roses to nursing homes, hospitals, banks, and the local library. Encourage the local library to have a rose book display.

3. Give roses to show love or friendship.

4. Give a rosebush for a longer-lasting gift. There are many different kinds of roses to choose from with a variety of colors, including stripes.

5. Visit a botanical garden or rose garden to gain inspiration for starting individual rose gardens or a community garden.

6. Take photos of roses and share them with friends in cards, notes, and letters. Share with the ARS social media platforms by tagging #roses, #nationalfloralemblem: www.facebook.com/RoseSociety,twitter.com/ AmericanRoseSoc, www.instagram. com/AmericanRoseSociety o

Exploring the Complexities of Using Ladybugs as Pest Control

When creating a garden, it’s likely that most people want to make decisions that leave a positive footprint on the local environment. In an attempt to limit the use of chemical pesticides and promote native species on their land, some gardeners have begun purchasing ladybugs as a form of “natural” pest control. However, Kaitlin Stack Whitney, assistant professor in the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Department of Science, Technology, and Society, says that buying ladybugs online, as opposed to attracting them naturally, can cause more harm than good to the environment.

In a recent publication in Catalyst Journal, Stack Whitney discussed the morality around employing ladybugs in a war on insect pests, as well as the nuance of considering insects as “good” or “bad” by the general public.

“Ladybugs make up the insect family Coccinellidae. There are many different kinds of ladybug, but there are a lot of things that all ladybugs do, such as eating soft-bodied insects like aphids and other garden pests,” said Stack Whitney. “How we think about these ladybugs—which ones we celebrate and which ones we don’t—is shaped by people’s ideas, not necessarily what the ladybugs are actually doing.”

Stack Whitney explained that people likely purchase ladybugs in an effort to aid with ecological restoration in addition to managing pests without using chemical pesticides. However, releasing these insects, rather than employing the myriad ladybugs already in the area, has implications that buyers may not be aware of.

The mail-order-ladybug pipeline is rife with mistreatment of the insect, according to Stack Whitney. Sellers often prey on ladybugs that congregate for winter hibernation. After they’re harvested from the wild, the insects are kept in cold conditions to extend their life cycles until someone decides to purchase them for what she describes as “militarized pest control.” This process goes against to the goal of helping the environment.

“Using ladybugs in this way is actually sort of violent. We may want to think that releasing ladybugs is the opposite of spraying chemical pesticides, but it’s just a continuation of this very violent, militarized way of controlling nature around us,” said Stack Whitney. “At the end of the day, if what you care about is promoting predation as a form of pest control, lots of ladybugs and other insects will eat the aphids in your garden.”

Stack Whitney further clarified that reducing pesticides isn’t a bad approach but that releasing ladybugs is not a “silver bullet” that will fix regional environmental issues. She also explained that the values placed on various insects—particularly when looking at species that are defined to be native or non-native to an area—have historically been rooted in xenophobia, racism, and misogyny.

“It’s so important to understand how issues of gender and race show up in how we think about the world. When we hold native species to be a stand-in for good or virtuous, it’s a choice that’s based on what we’ve decided is the best,” said Stack Whitney. “Every type of environmental management is a set of choices in which you are preferring one species over another. A classic example of this that I share with my students is to ask, ‘If we truly value all forms of life, who is going to help conserve parasites?’”

Humans have been manipulating and influencing the environment for centuries, but people being mindful of the choices they make when managing their gardens and enjoying the outdoors can make all the difference. Instead of purchasing mail-order insects for pest control, Stack Whitney suggested exploring alternative methods such as cultivating plants and pollinator-friendly flowers to attract them naturally.

“One of the challenges of teaching about the environment is oftentimes, people think that it’s all doom and gloom. But the historical ideas that have shaped the environment, ideas that can sometimes feel really heavy and daunting, were the results of a set of choices. Understanding our past choices means we can make different choices to craft a better future.” o

New Plant Spotlight

Delosperma ‘Ocean Sunset Orange Glow’

‘Ocean Sunset’ has a high flower count per plant, with the largest flowers of any Delosperma, and a great spreading habit. It has outstanding performance in pots, with showy flowers that close at night and open mid-morning. The intense, vivid colors are ideal in rock gardens and borders. It is very drought-tolerant once established.

It prefers sandy, well-drained soils. They don’t like to be waterlogged. Plant in a sunny location. Fertilize monthly.

Delosperma is also known as Ice Plant and this cultivar is hardy to USDA Zones 5a to 9b.

According to Chris Fifo of Darwin Perennials, Delosperma Ocean Sunset™ is the evolution of breeding in Delosperma. “Flowers continue to get bigger! Ocean Sunset nearly doubles the flower size of its predecessor.

“Delosperma are a succulenttype plant intended for full sun. The vibrant colors in this series are incredible and remain eye-catching in high light and temperature. These form a beautiful mat, without being invasive, that can tolerate extremes in the environment, which is so important these days.

“In containers, ‘Ocean Sunset’ fills out quickly and flowers based upon age of the plant and not daylength, allowing much versatility in scheduling for retail. If you grow Delosperma (or if you don’t), these are a musthave!” o

Quick Links to Recent Washington Gardener Blog Posts

• The Search for Heritage Seeds

• Penstemon Plant Profile

• Blackberry Sauce

• All About Clematis

See more Washington Gardener blog posts at WashingtonGardener.blogspot.com o

June–July Garden To-Do List

• Direct-sow annual flower and vegetable seeds.

• Water newly planted trees and shrubs weekly or as needed.

• Contact a Certified Arborist to have your trees’ health inspected.

• Check on your container plants daily and keep them well-watered.

• Watch for insect and disease problems throughout your garden.

• Mow in the early evening and cut off no more than one-third of the grass height at one time. Leave clippings on the ground to provide nutrients.

• Add barley straw (in a bale or ball) to your pond to improve water clarity.

• Take cuttings from azaleas and roses to start new plants.

• Harvest herbs to use in salads and summer dishes.

• Try a few new tropical plants on your patio.

• Shape your evergreens and hedges. Prune boxwoods.

• Look for slug trails in the early morning and put out slug bait as needed.

• Tie up climbing roses and other wandering vines.

• Fill in bare spots in the garden with annuals.

• Deadhead spent flowers to encourage reblooming.

• Prune flowering shrubs as their flowers fade—last chance to do so for fallblooming camellias.

• Spray roses with Neem oil every two weeks.

• Start a sunflower patch with help from a few kids.

• Harvest strawberry beds daily.

• Cut a few flowers to enjoy at your workplace.

• Apply grub control—this is the perfect time.

• Change the water in your birdbath daily and throw a Mosquito Dunk (or Mosquito Bits) into any standing water.

• Put in supports for tomatoes and tall-blooming plants such as Dahlias.

• Order spring-flowering bulbs to arrive for planting this fall.

• Take photos and update your garden journal.

• Inspect your garden hose for leaks and tighten all connections.

• Weed.

• Sow beets, beans, cucumbers, pumpkins, and squash for fall harvesting.

• Sharpen your lawnmower blade.

• Avoid using pesticides or any chemicals near your water garden.

• Make hummingbird food by boiling 2 cups of sugar in 4 cups of water.

• Turn your compost pile.

• Clean up fallen fruit and berries.

• Cover berry bushes and fruit trees with bird netting.

• Dig up garlic when the tops turn brown. Place in a well-ventilated room or a dry, shady spot to cure for three weeks, then store.

• Fertilize your azaleas and rhododendrons, and monitor them closely for any lacebug damage.

• Sow heat-tolerant greens like Swiss Chard and mustard greens in part-shade.

• As the heat and humidity move in, take it easy by working in the morning or early evening to avoid intense sun. Leave the big projects for this fall. For now, concentrate on maintaining the beds you’ve already established and nurturing your new plantings. o