Robert Haynes shows students how to make a seed ball.
The Jefferson High School Horticulture Class under the direction of Mr. Ryne Sikes partnered with 100 Kindergarten students at Jefferson’s Primary School on April 16 to produce over 1000 native wildflower seed balls. The high school students showed the younger students how to mix wildflower seeds with clay and compost to form golf ball sized spheres for dispersal on private property in Cass County as part of the Big Cypress Bayou Restoration Project. This is the second time this school year for such an activity.
Kindergarten students make seed balls with the help of high school mentors
The reason for the Cass County selection as a Pollinator Pal site is that it is at the headwaters of Frazier Creek which is the water quality comparator creek for Northeast Texas. The property also belongs to the Gene Weerts family. Michael Weerts, Gene’s son, is with the Texas Forest Service and fully understands the value in converting to wildlife habitat. In response, the Weerts family has sectioned off about 5 acres in the Midway Community as Pollinator Pal habitat. “With abundant springs and seeps right at the watershed divide, this is important acreage for studying the water quality here and comparing it to the entire system all the way down to where Jim’s Bayou enters Caddo Lake in Louisiana,” said Gary Endsley of Collins Academy.
The Weerts family has been on the Midway property for well over 100 years.
Species planted include host plants like milkweed, nectar sources such as sunflower, prairie verbena, purple cone flower, caryopsis, mealy blue sage, standing cypress, and liatris.
Horticulture students plant milkweed plugs they raised in their greenhouse.