PLANTING SCHOLASTIC HOPE DROPOUT RISKS DISCOVER SUCCESS.

Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer

LANCASTER - At Phoenix High School, almost half of the campus seems filled with potted plants, trees and bushes.

Society garlic, mock orange, privet bush, Hall's honeysuckle and junipers add greenery and color to an otherwise austere campus of gray asphalt and portable buildings.

``It's really nice to have the plants here. It makes it nice. It's spring, and all the flowers are blooming,'' school secretary Andrea McWilliams said.

The flora is the work of the Plant Club at the school, whose 120 students have been considered at risk of dropping out. Members groom and tend to hundreds of donated plants, which are then sold to the public at discount prices.

Students also have used the plants to landscape other Antelope Valley Union High School District campuses and to set up displays at local fairs and other events.

For three years, students have annually created a landscape display - complete with rocks, a pond and a water fountain - around a stage at Lancaster's California Poppy Festival, horticulture teacher Gene Smith said.

``What they see is the fruits of their labor. It's apparent right away. Plants are either healthy or not. When we put in landscape, it's an instant transformation from bare to planted,'' Smith said.

``A lot of the students we have here, they are going to return to campus at another school, or maybe they are finishing up on credits. They are a mobile group. If we had something that required a year to see a benefit, a lot of them wouldn't see the result of their hard work,'' Smith said.

The plants are in black garden cans and buckets of various sizes, lined up neatly in rows in front of the school's classrooms and surrounded by miniature irrigation pipes.

Senior Juan Medina, 17, said he has worked with plants since he was a small child, helping his grandmother water her garden and prune her rose bushes.

``I like working with the plants because they are green. They're nice. I've been around them since I was a little kid. I don't know their names, but they are nice,'' Medina said.

Danielle Weight, an 11th-grader, is using plants in her senior project. She and another student will bring heart-shaped English ivy topiaries to a Lancaster convalescent hospital and show the patients how to pot and take care of then.

``It's pretty nice. With different plants, you've got to do different things,'' said Weight, 16. ``There's a plant I'm allergic to. I have to be careful.''

Every year, the Japanese Cultural Center in Gardena gives the school hundreds of plants with a retail value of about $4,000, Smith said.

Smith grew up in Gardena and has friends who operate nurseries in that area.

``I go down to Gardena. They have a festival at the center. Any plants that don't sell, they donate to us,'' Smith said.

The Arboretum Foundation also donates about three trees a year, Smith said.

Smith uses a school district truck to haul the plants to campus, and then he and the students start their work.

``We set up irrigation systems. We categorize the plants - put the same ones together, take a look at what needs transplanting, plan on when to fertilize, do pruning,'' Smith said.

Customers who come to the school to buy the plants - typically about four a month - have heard about the program by word of mouth.

The prices are less than wholesale, usually ranging from $7.50 for a plant in a five-gallon can to $20 for one in a 15-gallon can, Smith said. The school takes only checks.

The program gives students experience that could lead to jobs with local businesses or a college degree in horticulture.

``It's not the money that we covet. It's the experience that students get working with customers and caring for plants. It has some therapy value and business value to it - entrepreneurial skills,'' Smith said. ``They will talk with the customer and help them load it in the car and give them an idea of what the plant will look like when it's grown and the type of flower.''

Students are eager to participate in landscaping projects, fairs or other community events, Smith said.

``When given the opportunity to accomplish community improvements and so forth, they never shirk from that. Oftentimes, when we go to the Los Angeles County Fair, I meet them at 4 in the morning. I might be 10 minutes late, but they are there on time. They ... have found something they can be successful at, and we encourage that,'' Smith said.

Karen Maeshiro, [phone]

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Teacher Gene Smith, right, watches Phoenix High students maintain potted plants they sell and use in displays at local events.

(2 -- color) Phoenix High student Martin Rodriguez tends to a plant. Such efforts can prepare kids for jobs or college horticulture studies.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer