After some starts and stops, Permian High School’s botanical garden appears on track to become a Christmas wonderland.
An art club student also is working on a mural for the door leading out to the garden.
“We are asking the students and the teachers to bring us donations of Christmas lights on the week of Nov. 14 through the 18th,” art teacher Luis Trejo Fuentes said.
They started putting the lights up Nov. 14 and will take them down the week of Jan. 9.
By the time they set the lights up last year, it was finals week and “nobody got to enjoy it.”
“But we’re going to start off early this year,” Fuentes said.
They want to have a Christmas Festival.
“In December, we’re going to invite everyone to come over here, see all the lights, take pictures. This is a good opportunity for the art clubs to do fundraisers, so we’ll be selling Christmas items — cups, mugs, T-shirts. This will be the first time we’re actually going to do an event (for) Christmas,” Fuentes said.
The idea is to make the garden a functional space where students can enjoy nature and de-stress.
“Last year, we got approved for movies in the garden. We got approved for a movie projector, speakers, (a) screen, so that’s something we’re going to be able to do as well,” Fuentes said.
They first got the garden in 2018 and were going to start being active in 2019. In spring 2019, they had a huge event planned, but it was canceled due to stormy weather.
“Most of what we had in here died,” Fuentes said.
After that was COVID and then roof construction prevented them from doing much. This is the first year they have been able to get the project rolling.
There were a bunch of tractor tires in the ground that had to be moved and he’s not sure why they were there.
“Each tire was 400 pounds. Last year, it took 22 kids to move one tire. This year we got it done with six or seven. But it was a lot of work. We were here for hours just trying to move (them). I’m not sure how many tires are were in the ground; I’m guessing over 20,” Fuentes said.
Now they have space to go wherever their imagination takes them.
There are 16 members in the sculpture garden club. There are no sculptures there yet, but 17-year-old senior Danna Frausto is working on a mural. She’s never painted a door, but she has made a large sculpture of a mutant snake.
Frausto was finishing the sketch for the door and planned to start painting the door the next day.
She said she thinks it will take a month or two to finish painting. She was going to use house paint.
The mural includes Koi fish that used to be in the garden, but died. Fuentes said it was an homage, in part, to the fish.
Frausto is thrilled to be creating the mural.
“It’s amazing. I hope it’ll stay there for a long time. It’s pretty exciting also because I’ve never done a painting on a wall, or door,” she said.
Frausto said she plans to study criminology, but if it doesn’t work out, she may pursue art, “Kind of like a Plan B.”
This year, Fuentes said, it’s not just the Sculpture Garden Club taking care of the garden anymore.
“We’re partnering up with the science department, so while we are in here organizing events, cleaning up for the most part, the environmental sciences classes, they’re helping us out,” Fuentes said.
He added that they want to bring power to the greenhouse in the garden.
“That way we can start growing things and that’ll be what the environmental sciences classes are going to be mostly doing. Some of the science teachers are performing experiments in the pond water to see if we can introduce a new species of fish, a new population of fish,” Fuentes said.
He added that the special education classes also will help out when they start setting up Christmas lights Nov. 14.
“This is a huge place. We get a little bit of rain, everything goes crazy. It takes a lot of people to make sure that this thing stays neat. It’s a great endeavor, so that’s kind of the cool thing is about this year (is) we have other people helping us out,” Fuentes said.
He added that interest has grown in the garden since he began posting items online about it. “I always send out messages throughout the school and a lot of the other departments are becoming interested.”
Christian Favela-Guevara, a 15-year-old freshman, got involved in the sculpture garden club because of his love for the outdoors and nature.
“I also wanted to see how this place could actually evolve and … turn into a really pretty place,” Favela-Guevara said.
The group mainly works on the garden after school.
“So far, we’ve actually made a ton of progress. This used to have a ton of weeds. This entire place where the pond is at — huge amounts of weeds. We managed to remove all the tires with just six people in only a matter of a couple of days, I believe. With the resources we were provided, with the lawn mower and all that type of stuff we were able to speed through and we’re almost in the process of finishing the paths and all that type of stuff,” he added.
