ORIG./ The Bulletin employee in The Bulletin studio in Bend Wednesday morning 10-30-13. Andy Tullis/The Bulletin ORIG./ The Bulletin employee in The Bulletin studio in Bend Wednesday morning 10-30-13. Andy Tullis/The Bulletin

As Bend High School’s Dreamhouse ends its second year, its chief proponent, Robert Tadjiki, is just as happy about it as he was in June 2012, when it was dedicated. Giving students in his life-skills class a place to work and something to show for their efforts is only the tip of what he clearly believes is a pretty marvelous iceberg.

The Dreamhouse is 36 by 48 feet, far larger than a greenhouse designed for backyard gardeners. In springtime, its tables are filled with basil plants and flower baskets, with older, better developed flower baskets hanging overhead. It’s a peaceful place, and it smells good to boot.

Tadjiki’s first experience with what’s known as horticultural therapy came when he was teaching special education in the Chicago area roughly 20 years ago. He loved it, in no small part because of the way his students responded to it. When he came to Bend in 2000, he brought that love with him.

It took years to re-create his Chicago experience. Bend’s schools, like those across Oregon, have run into tough financial times sporadically since Tadjiki arrived, and simply trying to maintain curriculum and faculty at acceptable levels has been a struggle. There has been no money left over for such things as greenhouses, at least not from traditional sources.

Tadjiki is not the sort of man to drop an idea once it’s taken hold, however. He worked for years to bring the Dreamhouse to Bend High, persuading members of the community to lend one or two or several hands along the way. He applied for grants. He worked with school district officials, and finally, more than six years after he began the effort, he oversaw the building’s dedication.

This year, his roughly 30 students ran a thriving basil-growing operation, raising plants from seed, tending them, then harvesting and packaging leaves for both Newport Market and C.E. Lovejoy’s. Next year, Tadjiki hopes, Whole Foods Market will also purchase basil from his students.

In addition, students grew the flower baskets that until recently adorned the three Ace Hardware stores in Bend this spring, and early in June those baskets were beautiful, full of a variety of flowers in an array of colors.

The Dreamhouse enhances Tadjiki’s students’ education in a couple of ways, he says.

The quiet and routine of greenhouse work is just what some students with intellectual disabilities need, for one thing. Kids can work on their own, without the hustle and bustle of a restaurant or other commercial outlet. Too, the tending of plants can help some students improve their concentration, memory and cognitive abilities, according to the American Horticultural Therapy Association.

As an added benefit, the project is profitable. The money raised gives life-skills students opportunities some have never had before, such as field trips, for one thing, and a longer trip that keeps students away from home for several days at the end of the year. This year, Tadjiki and the rest of the life-skills staff took students to Kah-Nee-Ta Resort & Spa for several days.

Now, Tadjiki and the other staff members who oversee the greenhouse and assist students there are busy winding down for the summer. They’ve had a year-end sale to clear out stock that cannot survive the summer without routine care. And they’re already planning for next year. In a perfect world, Tadjiki says, he’d be able to find someone to tend the Dreamhouse over the summer, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Meanwhile, Tadjiki has not quit dreaming. He hopes to take his students to New York one spring in the future, financed in part with the profits of the Dreamhouse. It would be a major undertaking, no doubt, but he’s traveled with students to Los Angeles and Chicago in the past, so he’s had some experience at it. He knows, too, that such trips offer a whole range of new learning experiences, ones he believes his students will benefit from, just as they do from the greenhouse at Bend High.

— Janet Stevens is deputy editor of The Bulletin. Contact: 541-617-7821, jstevens@bendbulletin.com