First Place: Living Green Wall at Brock Environmental Center’s Classroom Annex
Submitted by the Virginia Beach Garden Club
The Virginia Beach Garden Club will provide support for a “green wall” to be located in the Virginia Beach Public School’s Classroom Annex affiliated with the Brock Environmental Center. Here local high school students will participate in a program focusing on environmental science, green building practices, and sustainable approaches to real world issues. Green walls include greenery, a growing medium and a water delivery system. The walls provide indoor environmental health benefits combatting attention fatigue by connecting students to “outdoor nature” within the indoor environment. Additionally, green walls reduce energy costs. The extra layer of air between the plants and the wall absorbs acoustic energy and reduces noise. The green wall is an example of a sustainability practice that can be modeled in future homes and workplaces.
Second Place: Mill Mountain Wildflower Garden: The Next Fifty Years and Beyond
Enhancing the Visitor Experience Through Educational Signage
Submitted by Mill Mountain Garden Club
High atop Mill Mountain in Roanoke’s most visited urban park is the Mill Mountain Wildflower Garden. As the primary caretakers, Mill Mountain Garden Club members tend this beloved, iconic 2.5-acre garden weekly. To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the garden, the club launched their largest and most ambitious fundraising campaign contributing to an overall restoration of the garden. The Common Wealth Award will provide funds for enhancing the educational experience of the visitor in the garden while highlighting the vital mission of conservation. Along the “Discovery Trail” path four permanent, colorful and informative signs will showcase and identify Virginia native plants, wildflowers, trees, insects, and pollinators. Signage will also emphasize the importance of planting natives in the garden and feature other takeaways on the nexus of nature, climate science, and health.
