Green thumb Tim Vermette is on a mission to help Methuen students get their hands dirty and “dig” lessons on plants and gardening.
He personally grows a wide variety of plants, then separates them and distributes them to teachers in
the city who sign on to his free program.

“I grow the plants during the summer,” Vermette told MethuenLife, “taking cuttings and trying to root them. It was a great year, much better than last year when we had so much rain and I lost a quarter of the plants due to root rot. (This year) I was able to root coleus, geranium, pointsetta, pothos, spadeleaf, colochia, inchplant, arbovite, mums and succulents.”

In late September, he donated about 200 plants to the Marsh, Timony, Tenney, CGS and Islamic Academy for Peace.

“It was the best response from the schools since I started doing this about 5 years ago with about 30 teachers asking for plants,” said Vermette, who previously ran this program through the now-defunct Methuen Garden Club.

Teachers and students will care for the plants over the school year “watching them grow and in the spring try to take cuttings and do experiments with the plants, then have the students document the results,” Vermette explained. “It’s a free program with many of the supplies provided by me, all in the name of kids learning about plants and how to grow things.

This program is usually followed up in March with free seeds, usually donated by the large seed companies (like) Johhny`s, Burpee, etc. The plants are picked up in May before the end of the school year with recommendations for plants they would like in the fall.”

If any teacher would like to participate in this program, e-mail Vermette at tim.65@verizon.net and he will add your name to the list.