Gardens

Live Like a Local: Tybee Community Garden

Here on Tybee, we are always on the lookout for ways to conserve, preserve, and promote environmental awareness. One such project that includes all of those things is the Tybee Community Garden!

This season is off and running! The garden is meant to be a place where the entire community can experience the benefits of growing, gardening, and taking care of our local environment.The first work day this year was March 13th, but you can still get in on the fun! The garden produces year-round and is completely self sustaining. Participants of the project collect rain water and condensation from around the island to water…no city resources are used! There’s even a composting area that uses nature to provide nutrients for all the growing plants.

Plots are available on a first come first served basis, and it is $50 for a 4×8 foot growing space. For information on available plots, and anything else you might need, contact Karen Kelly at 912-786-9719 or email karenontybee@aol.com.

Currently, the garden is for individual consumption and swapping, but hopefully we will see it blossom into a local market with fresh produce for sale! New members are welcome, as long as there are vacant plots available, so make sure to call for information! The garden can always use more supplies, like hoses, rain barrels, and such, so there are plenty of ways to lend a hand!

Last year was so much fun! Just look at some of the plots we had, and the harvest we enjoyed!

Just one of the beautiful plots last year! Check out the Tybee Community Garden Facebook page for more!

There’s nothing quite like getting your hands dirty, working the soil, and harvesting your bounty! Visit Tybee’s Community Garden next time you’re on the island. Its located between the YMCA and the Old School. Stop by, or better yet, reserve a plot and help keep Tybee green! We’d love to see you there!

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Live Like a Local: Earth Day is Every day!

If you didn’t know, Earth Day is right around the corner! That’s right, April 22nd is officially Earth Day, but you don’t have to limit being green to just one special day. Here at Mermaid Cottages, we try to make every day Earth Day!We are all about living a little greener and showing Mother Earth how much we care.

Being green isn’t as difficult as it seems. It is really just a lot of little actions that add up to big benefits when they become habits. We do a lot of those little things to reap the green benefits around here!

First off, we make sure to do as much as we can electronically. We email everything, so there is less printing, which means less wasted paper! All of our cottages use Compact Fluorescent light bulbs, and we install Lo-flow water-saving devices in all of our bathrooms and outdoor showers. Everyone here contributes something to our green philosophy…some of our Mermaids and Mermen ride their bicycles to work, and we clean with all Eco-friendly products. We even do energy audits for all of our cottages to see how we can save even more energy. And outside our homes, we plant drought resistant local plants to help conserve water. We also participate in Tybee’s Community Garden project!

We want to do whatever we can to leave this planet a little better than we found it, and we encourage others to do the same. Just some ways you can help during your stay (and even when you return home!) are:

  • Slay “Vampire Power” by turning off all lights, TVs, DVDs & computers when not in use
  • Use the outdoor clothesline to dry your clothes (they smell good too!)
  • Open the windows turn on the ceiling fans and enjoy the ocean breezes!
  • Use Cold, not Hot in the washing machine
  • Draw your curtains/blinds during the heat of the day
  • Walk, ride bikes, rent scooters or electric cars!
  • Recycle…glass, plastic, cans, newspapers: use the home’s green recycling container!
  • Reduce and Reuse by taking your own bags to the grocery store.
  • While brushing teeth, turn water off, and use a cup of water to cleanse mouth of
    toothpaste.

We could go on and on about fun ways to be Earth friendly! Find ideas-a-plenty on how you can be a little greener on our Being Green page over on our website! This Earth is the only one we’ve got…let’s all be good stewards. We didn’t inherit this planet from our parents, it is on loan to us from future generations, so let’s take good care of our gift! Happy Earth Day Y’all!

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1001 Ways To Get Tybee-ized: Confederate Jasmine

If it looks like jasmine, smells like jasmine, acts like jasmine it should be jasmine, right?

Just look at this beautiful Confederate Jasmine that welcomes you to our wonderful Blue Heron Cottage!

Confederate Jasmine, also known as Star Jasmine, is not a true jasmine, but it is referred to as jasmine because of its fragrant, jasmine like flowers.

New growth starts out with light green, lance-shaped leaves and soon matures to a glossy, dark green color that produces clusters of white star shaped flowers.  This usually occurs in late spring or early summer in most places, but on Tybee it’s happening right now!  Once established this fast growing evergreen vine can be trained to climb where you want it.  It’s especially beautiful on fences, pergolas, pillars and trees.  Just pinch the tips to keep it trimmed and it even makes a beautiful shrub and it is very effective as a weed choking ground cover!  Those of you that are especially talented at training greenery will find this an excellent choice for topiaries, trailing containers and hanging baskets.

It’s just one of the many extraordinary and exotic spring surprises you’ll find while strolling the gorgeous neighborhoods on Tybee!  Just grab your leash and your dog, invite family and friends and discover the wonders in our island gardens!

https://bookmermaidcottages.escapia.com/Unit.mvc/Details/28382

It’s just one of the many ways to get Tybee-ized!

 

 

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Fluffin’ and Plantin’

Daughter Katie and one of her college best friends, Phillipia just left after two days of visiting. Phillipia is a container gardener extraordinaire and has been wanting to come down and play in the coastal dirt vs the mountains of Asheville, NC dirt. She completely re did the window box and front yard gardens at Mermaid Manor and added some great containers at Dutton Waller Cottage. Enjoy her beautiful work!

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Birds and Bees and my flower box!

My flower box in front of my house continues to attract the birds and the bees! I’ve had a number of bumble bees enjoying the flowers and today -yet another ruby throated hummingbird!! Appartently there is a nationwide decline in bumble bees- which is NOT a good thing, but my wild native flowers is attracting them here to me! There is a website for everything in the world and bumble bees are no exception. visit http://www.bumblebees.org/ and you can learn everything you need, including the specific type of window box to plant to attract more of these hard working little guys. This is a picture I took of my flower box, you can’t see the bumble bee ( I wasn’t fast enough to get the picture of the humingbird either!). BTW , if you haven’t read the comments on the last blog I did on humingbirds, go back and read what one expert added about these little birds. Great reading!

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