By: Denise Foley

It's chaos with a design plan. These rocks and trees will look like the monastery on Inishmurray, on the Sligo coast.

Right now, it’s just slabs of Pennsylvania field stone grouped haphazardly on mulch, shrubs and trees with their root balls bagged in burlap, and freshly painted gravestones carved from insulation.

But in less than two weeks, this half-done project by students at the W.B. Saul School of Agricultural Science on Henry Avenue in Roxborough—the only city public school with its own herd of sheep—will be the ruins of a monastery on Inishmurray, an ancient, uninhabited island off the coast of Sligo. You’ll be able to walk through an arch, between the Celtic crosses and headstones, where phlox, heather, and Irish moss grow. There’ll be a lowland bog, dotted by carex grass and juncus, a corkscrew rush. A stone wall will encircle the moody scene—theatrical lighting is in the works—and towering over it will be a cherry tree, and assorted junipers and cedars.

While the plants will be native, not so the other materials, says Garth Schuler, landscape design teacher at Saul and one of several teachers helping students put together their annual exhibit for the Philadelphia Flower Show. ”We’re using Pennsylvania field stone,” he says. “In Ireland, the native stone tends to be sandstone, limestone and what they call rubble stone. The kids did some research and couldn’t find anything called ‘rubble stone,’ so we figured it just meant rubble.”

The arch will be made from plywood and foundation insulation, the latter a contribution from Toll Brothers, via Schuler’s dumpster diving. “They throw away a lot of good stuff,” he laughs. Colibraro Brothers Landscaping and Nursery in Horsham donated much of the plant material (officially), and Produce Junction in Glenside gave the students heather at half price. The stones are on loan from Allied Landscape and Contractor Supply in Dresher.

About 30 students are working on this year’s Flower Show entry. They did everything from researching the monastery, creating the design (which started on a paper napkin), calling in the materials, forcing plants into bloom, as well as designing and creating signage. Before they could make the signs, however, they had to submit all technical plant IDs—Latin names for genus and species--to the Flower Show’s Nomenclature Committee, which was a little like taking a final exam . . . in Latin.

“We had the tags from the nursery but they didn’t always have the genus, species and sometimes the cultivar,” says student Waleska Paulino, 17, of North Philadelphia, who did much of the research. “They came back with very few corrections,” notes landscape design teacher Barbara Brown. “The kids did a very good job.”

For students at this magnet school, which is a working urban farm and the largest ag high school in the country, Flower Show participation requires strong motivation and commitment. “A lot of our kids have to juggle family concerns with school,” explains Schuler. “Some of the kids have to drop brothers and sisters off before they come. Others are on public transportation for an hour and a half twice a day. Some have to get up at 4 a.m. to be here. That takes a lot of dedication.”

Not to mention time. Often, the students are there long past dismissal every day. In the weeks leading up to the show, they’ll be there on weekends too. In fact, on Saturday, February 24, they have to pack up all the materials for their exhibit (which includes a ton of stone), load it on a truck, haul it and a tractor to the Pennsylvania Convention Center and then reconstruct the Irish scene—all in time for the March 3 opening day. And they have to do it without missing school more than two days in a row.

But every moment is a teachable moment. “We’ve just found out that the clutch is gone on one of our tractors,” says Schuler. “I always tell the students that in my 14 years experience in landscaping, if you accept that five things are going to go wrong, and then one thing goes right, you’re having a good day. They’re learning!”

Alysson Golder, 16, of Mayfair, says she wouldn’t trade the experience for the world. “I love this,” says the junior, who wants to be a landscape designer. “It’s so much fun. We meet new people, spend time with teachers one-on-one, learn things that are going to pay off in the future. And we’ve all gotten so close because of it. This is something I’m going to remember the rest of my life.”