By L. Taylor Smith

Shelby Farms was filled with people eager to learn more about going green and living a more eco-friendly life. With performances by musicians and acrobats, plenty of fun activities and vendors selling everything from hand-carved furniture to scented candles, the coast of Patriot Lake was buzzing with activity.

By L. Taylor Smith

Wilma Davis, a Memphis Area Master Gardner, will lecture Monday on how to attract native birds as part of the TIGUrS’ Animal Conservation lecture series. 

Davis used to work at The Wild Bird Feeding Industry in Jackson Springs, Miss., until she retired nine years ago.

“I’ve always been interested in gardening and took the (Master Gardener) class,” Davis said. “It covers plants, soils, insects, turf, a little bit of everything. They say that if you take this class and try to get a bachelor’s in agriculture, you’ll just need English, history, things like that.”

Davis said the best way to attract wild birds to a garden or green space is to provide ample water, food, nesting habitats and protection habitats like trees and shrubs.

“Nesting habitats are for the cavity nesters like chickadees, titmice and nuthatches,” Davis said. “Other birds like robins, doves and cardinals build their nests primarily in nests in trees and shrubs.”

She also discourages letting cats outside.

By L. Taylor Smith 

More than 40 volunteers showed up for the Memphis River Warriors’ first cleanup of the year Saturday.

During the cleanup, volunteers walked through the woods by McKellar Lake and collected Styrofoam, plastic and glass bottles, wrappers and other trash that had washed up on the banks.

In two hours, volunteers collected 580 pounds of recyclable materials.

The Memphis River Warriors, a registered student organization at the University of Memphis, works with other organizations like Memphis City Beautiful and the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group to clean up the area, which used to be a popular vacation spot.

Rachel Waters, a freshman psychology major at the U of M, got involved when she came to college because her older sister Grace Waters was part of the core group of initial volunteers.

“I started to go in support of her, but I very soon got hooked on the idea of making a change in the community and doing something for the greater good of millions of people,” Waters said. “Before coming to these cleanups, I had no idea of the magnitude of trash that could accumulate in one location.”

By L. Taylor Smith

The Eckles-Madison Family Cemetery on Carnes Avenue does not look like much of a threat during the winter with trees bare and vines limp from the cold. But the Normal Station neighborhood knows it’s only a matter of time before the flora emerge out of hibernation and take back the lot.

Come spring break, however, college students from Florida will spend the week clearing the lot.

TK Buchanan, community safety liaison for the University of Memphis, said the property, which is just off Echles Street, has been a problem for more than 100 years, especially during the summer when plants grow over the gravestones and into nearby properties.

“Literally, no one has ever taken care of it,” Buchanan said.

 The cemetery was created just before the area was redeveloped for housing in the early 1900s, and approximately 14 members of the Eckles and Madison families are buried on the property.

Although Memphis city workers, local residents and Boy Scout troops would occasionally try to rehabilitate the lot, it was never enough.

“Basically what they do is remove the litter or dumping and leave,” Buchanan said. “There’s nothing else that they can do without heavy equipment, a plan and some resources.”

By Paul Crum

“It’s actually the most fun you’ll have in two hours of picking up trash,” says Colton Cockrum, advisor to the Memphis River Warriors, a local group whose mission is to clean up along the Mississippi River and the waterways that flow through the city.

“It’s very laid back and we have a great group that leads everyone,” said Cockrum, Assistant Director of the Center for Academic Retention and Enrichment Services at the University of Memphis.

He noted that the group has been keeping track of the amount of trash it has collected, and that the next clean-up scheduled for Nov. 16 will mark 50,000 pounds of trash bagged by the Memphis River Warriors.

“What’s really cool is that we’ve recycled over 30,000 pounds of that trash,” Cockrum said.  “All of this trash comes off the streets of Memphis, goes into Nonconnah Creek and then flows into McKellar Lake. So essentially, we are picking up our own trash.”

By Paul Crum

A bright, brisk autumn morning provided visitors to the Let’s Grow Garden Expo with a perfect day for a stroll through the TIGUrS Urban Garden on the east side of the University of Memphis campus.

The Nov. 2 event cosponsored by the Memphis Area Master Gardeners and the U of M promised gardening enthusiasts a day filled with informative lectures, demonstrations, exhibits, music, food, art and more.

Plenty of Master Gardeners were on hand to offer advice and answer questions about their organization.

Student Garden Coordinator Art Johnson revealed that Dina Martin, wife of interim University President Brad Martin, is a Master Gardener and provided impetus for organizing the event.

“She came and saw our garden and got some crazy ideas about how we could really get this thing in the public eye,” Johnson explained. “She talked to the rest of the Master Gardeners and they all got on board and agreed to partner with us to pull this Let’s Grow event together.”

He said that although the garden had been there for almost four years, the TIGUrS (Tigers Initiative for Gardens in Urban Settings) had never undertaken anything of this magnitude.

“We do an earth day every year in April, but we’ve always wanted to do something much broader and bigger than that,” said Johnson, who also served as emcee for the event. “They helped steer us so we could do this as effectively as possible, because they know how to do this kind of thing.”

By Paul Crum

Supporters of Grow Memphis know the appeal of fresh, locally grown food, and those who attended the Garden Party benefit on Oct. 26 seemed to appreciate the creative recipes crafted by participating vendors and chefs.

“I can’t say enough about how wonderful it was to work with Stone Soup,” said Grow Memphis Executive Director Chris Peterson, speaking of the Cooper Young café and market that opened their doors to host the event.

Manager Troy Norwood said that he and owner/chef Sharron Johnson were happy to oblige.

“We are so pleased to work with Grow Memphis for their fundraiser this evening,” he said. “We are totally on board with the things they are doing to promote growing fresh food in Memphis.”

Grow Memphis was founded by the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center in 2007 and was modeled after community garden projects that had sprung up in Orange Mound as a way of producing healthy food in the vacant lots that abound in blighted neighborhoods.

By Natalie Cole

The best things in life can often be the hardest to come by and just the same, the Tiger Bike shop is one of those things. Nestled behind the front parking lot on Southern Avenue at the end of campus and a parking lot adjacent to the Rec Center is one of the University's newest “green” programs.

Each semester the student body at the University of Memphis pays a required $10 green fee, which boasts a multitude of environmentally friendly programs on campus and in the surrounding neighborhoods. The Tiger Bike program began March 2013 with the goal of allowing students access to a cost-efficient, eco-friendly means of transportation as well as health promotional implementation for exercise.

Along with providing students a means to meet the “Memphis Healthy U” recommendation for “daily exercise for good health,” it directly corresponds with the local government’s endeavors to “provide bike lanes along city streets and to build greenlines and other trails that connect parks and recreational areas throughout the city and the county," according to the U of M's website regarding the program.

"There are so many students who live within a two-mile radius of campus and don't have to drive their car to campus," said Amelia Mayahi, sustainability coordinator for the U of M. "They can ride their bike and go straight to the door where their classes are. And we also have a parking issue on our campus. I think this [program] could help with the limited amount of parking spaces.”

In its initial semester, the program did not get much student traffic, said Arthur Johnson, Tiger Bike shop coordinator. But this semester has shown more promise.

“In our opening semester we rented, maybe, six or seven bikes total," Johnson said. "Okay, maybe ten. Within two weeks of the opening of this semester, however, every single one of the Tiger Bikes was spoken for and remain so to this day.”

The U of M is proud to be amongst some of the top universities with sustainability programs. Before launching the Tiger Bike program, Mayahi visited universities such as Ole' Miss and Rhodes who have similar programs to do research and gauge their effectiveness.

By Meagan Nichols

Is it an antique store? Is it a restaurant? Is it Snow White’s cottage?

These are the questions most residents unfamiliar with the English style building located on Highland Street might ask themselves as they motor down the strip.

While the building looks like it belongs in the Enchanted Forest, it does not house any Disney princesses. Wellford’s Antique Collection and The Elegant Farmer are the two establishments that reside in this whimsical edifice.

Owner Mac Edwards founded The Elegant Farmer in April of 2011. While it is still in its juvenile years, Edwards has worked in the food industry for his entire adult life with more than 35 years of experience.

Edwards owned McEwen’s on Monroe in Downtown Memphis from 1997 until he sold the restaurant in 2008. After three years of consulting work after the sale, Edwards decided to get back in the restaurant business. He started renting space from the Wellford’s building located at 262 South Highland St. and thus began The Elegant Farmer.

One of the pillars of the restaurant is fresh, local food. It is one of 49 Project Green Fork certified restaurants located in the Memphis area. For a restaurant to be eligible for the Project Green Fork certification, businesses must abide by six “green” steps.