Sharon Lovejoy
 

The following is an edited transcription of the taped presentation by Sharon Lovejoy at "Education in Blossom" Symposium co-sponsored by SUNY Cortland and Cornell University in Cortland on July 30 and 31, 1997. In the audience are Jane Taylor, the former curator of the Michigan State 4-H Children's Garden at Michigan State University, and author-lecturer Betsy Williams from Andover, Massachusetts.

I'm thrilled to be here, and it would take only Bonnie and Marcia to pry me out of Maine and bring me twelve hours across three states to get here. But, there is nothing I like better than to reach a group of educators like you because all it takes is one educator, one person who cares in a school or in a cooperative extension program, just one person, and very little money to really create a miracle, and I'm going to share that with you.

I have to disagree with my friend Jane Taylor just a little bit. I think there is a child inside every one no matter what their age. I never give up on kids, even when I get them in my gardens or on my walks. There's always a little bit of hope. And, I never give on them when they are 97.

I had 97 year old woman tell me "I decided to come on my walk today, Sharon, before I got too old to enjoy it." So, I think Richard Henry Dana wrote in the 1840, "It 's never to late to be a child at heart," and I want you to always remember that.

I have a different view point. My husband and I have a family business where we worked together to put in public gardens that have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands people, and that 's what really matters to me.
Today my husband asked, "Why did we do that?" And I said, "Because I don't care about clothes, and I don't care about fancy cars. But, I love to buy plants and work with kids, and I like to buy a few books once in a while." So, all it takes is really hard work and creative imagination, and you can work wonders.

First thing I want to show you is my "tool box". I love using a sheet of plexiglass . I put duct tape around the edges so little hands don't get cut, I use a flashlight and scoop worms and insects from my worm bin, And then I let the kids look at it from underneath. Then, they can see all the magical things going on in the soil. They learn not to take anything for granted.

You can get scraps for free from a framing shop if you go in, and with a winsome look on your face, and say, "I'm an educator, and I'm doing children's classes, Do you have any scraps?" It worked for me last week in Maine.

Do you remember when Jane showed us the slide of the Daikon? I use an aquarium with black paper on the sides. I love to grow carrots and radishes and Daikons. Kids can lift off the black paper and see the roots in the soil.

I think a notebook is really important. We do what we call a holistic approach to gardening. We hit all the sciences, the arts, and every discipline that can be brought into a garden. So the kids get a small inexpensive notebook in which to write poetry, compose songs, and draw pictures. Another thing that we include in the notebook is a photograph. Use a camera when you work with children's groups, and I'll tell you why.

I like to put the pictures in the kid's notebook or fix it onto a piece of cardboard so kids can take it home. Many of our inner city children or children who come from a broken family have no history. They have no family ties, No beautiful photographs of anything good that happens in their lives. If their mother is using crack, and their father is using heroin, are they going to be snapping photographs in the garden? But, if you can hand them something tangible to take home in a notebook, they can look at a connected history to a garden. It's better if you can take a weekly photograph. Sometimes when you look at a photograph of yourself, you can vividly recall what happened.

At our public garden, we keep binoculars so kids can use them in a garden. One of the neat things taught to me by a child is that you can flip the binoculars over and use them as a spotting scope. I also use a magnifying glass. You can also get those flexible magnifying sheet. You can buy a large quantity for five or ten cents each. You might be able to get them donated from a business with their logo on it.

My favorite thing is a stethoscope. I get an inexpensive one for under $10. If kids put the stethoscope up against the bark of a tree or bush in spring, summer, or fall, they can hear a lot of activity going on. You can hear "glump, glump" as the plant drinks; you can hear bore beetles; you can hear sap rising. It teaches kids about the miracles going on in a garden. I got a letter from educator whose class went out and sent me the voices of 20 trees. Her kids couldn't wait to go out and listen to the trees.

That's my tote box. And you can do it very inexpensively. Again, don't feel embarrassed or shy to ask for donations.

I mentioned to you that I use a holistic approach in teaching all the art and all the sciences. Let me take you into the garden, I think when you boil it all down, gardening for me is about the exciting look kids have on their face when they walk through the gates.

Remember that the garden is a place of joy. Jane stole my poem, "Long straight rows are such a bore, Gardens should be a chore." I'm so horrified when I see people starting kids off in straight raised beds and kids think that is what a garden is supposed to look like. I want you to promise to make your garden a beautiful place as well as a place where things grow.

I think it's critically important to make your children a part of the process of planning. I worked as a consultant for botanical gardens around the country. I think it's funny that the planners never stop to ask the kids what they want. I like to supply the children with big sheets of butcher paper and coffee cans with crayons so they are not restricted with small pieces of paper. I let the kids tell me what they want in a garden. Most of the time they want a water element and they include picture of bugs and snakes and birdhouses and tree houses and scarecrows. Kids have a certain set thing they want.

For 24 years I've worked as a naturalist for a museum. When I worked around kids, I'd follow them and listen to them. If I went to a botanical garden, I'd listen to the kids; I follow kids and take notes. Although I appreciate landscape architects, they've been so busy becoming landscape architects, they've forgotten to listen to the voices of the children. So, you have to listen to your children to know what they want.

I use story telling as a basic tool. It's part of my holistic teaching method. Learn the historical or medicinal uses of plants. The more versed you become with plants and gardening, the more it will flow from you naturally and the better teacher you will be. There is nothing more disheartening than when I go to a botanical garden and follow a docent or teacher with a didactic, sing song, boring, flat tone because they are not excited. So you have to keep that enthusiasm and excitement alive. And the kids will respond.

Our garden are a constant scene for art classes. This (slide) is an adult art group, but we also have children's art classes, sculpting, and leaf printing and painting. Think of a garden, not as a separate place, but as another room in which you can have all kinds of experiences. When it snows and it's a nice day, go out and look to see what trees have buds or where the old bird's nest are. So, all seasons go out and go into the garden.

I think a garden is a very important place to teach cultural differences. It's really exciting to see vegetable that are grown in Nigeria and that we don't find here, It's very great way to open up the whole worlds to kids. To teach them geography and sociology. You can do a Chinese garden and grow rice in a half barrel .You can Daikon radishes in a container. You can use buckets; you can use all kinds of things. Remember to experiment, and get excited about it.

Have you ever tried to teach kids about photosynthesis? It's hard. When we have festivals, we have a singing tree. (Slide of man with a guitar dressed up like a tree) How do you teach kids that trees are sipping sunlight and turning it into supper and still make it exciting for them? So, we have the singing tree. He is dressed in burlap. All these things you see all over him, let me pointed them out, are on velcro. There's a pileated woodpecker, a sapsucker, beetles, all the different things going on on the tree while the tree is growing. Kids start to learn that trees are not only the spirit of the garden, but the lungs of the earth. Oak tree supports hundreds of kinds of insects and the birds that eat the insects. Our singing tree sings Billy B's song about photosynthesis. Kids remember and understand photosynthesis when it's sung to them. (Amadeus Music in Portland, Maine, handles his tapes.) Use things that are song and poems to teach kids the sciences.

We bring kids into the garden to play music. We also use things from the garden for music. Sambuca, the elderberry tree or flute tree, bamboo, drums made from gourds, corn stalk fiddles. There are lots of things you can do and all from the garden and in the garden.

As I was writing my book Sunflower Houses, which I started in 1983, Jane was doing this mammoth project at Michigan State University. I was going little pow dunk stuff in my gardens in California and doing research. I collected information for about 13 years on the Linnaeus floral dial. I don't know how many of you have read Karl Linnaeus' writing on the floral dial? What I tried to do is watch plants during the day and night and figure when they opened and closed.

This (slide) is at Oklahoma State University (OSU) where they taped a PBS show using my floral dial from my book Sunflower Houses . It worked out quite well for the kids to go out and see plants bloom at a certain time of the day. They have a certain time of day when they open and when they close. It really brings a whole new dimension to kids who start see plants in a different way.

This (slide) is Jeff using the stethoscope. I think the original idea came from a book Sharing Nature with Children by Joseph Cornell. I bought my first copy in 1979. I was doing what Cornell was doing, but he said it more beautifully than anyone could imagine. Look for a copy.

We can tie history and folklore and crafts and arts into the lives of children. Let them see that plants are inextricably bound to our history, especially the herbs, the Medicinals, the fragrant plants used for thousands of years. Once kid's know that potpourri means rotten pot, they love. Once they find out they can sell it for $3 and ounce, they love it even more. Let them learn about fixatives and spice trails. Or that people paid rent with a clove or pepper corn. Or that people used to stuff their pillows and mattress with rose petals and potpourri. You can bring all those parts of history in. Get the kids excited about the history.

Why am I showing you a picture of a hollyhock? Because I want to get you excited about the plants to which I referred in Sunflower Houses as personality plants. They are the old fashioned plants that would have grown in your grandmother's garden. Of all the plants in the world, the one most spoken about, most written to me, most recounted is the hollyhock. How many of you, just raise your hand, remember playing with a hollyhock in some way? Pretty amazing.

I love it when men 80 years old would capture bumble bees inside hollyhock and let them go near their friends. Horrible, I didn't include that in my book. I love the stories of hollyhock dolls, stringing them into leis, and making puppets, string them on a line and making dancing girl choruses. Or, stuffing them with ice cream or cheese. I loved learning that Chinese planted hollyhocks around their bees to encourage healthy and happy bees.

I love the idea that it is an ancient plant was so prolific in Marblehead, Massachusetts, that they called it "Hollyhock Town". Yes, it gets rusty. Big Deal. It also attracts hummingbirds, and painted lady butterflies. Sometimes you'll see a little hammock rolled up inside a leaf and that's a painted lady butterfly wintering over or spending time in the larval stage.

What you might think of as just a trumpet vine, which is very important to a hummingbird, is also the best bubble pipe. It is also placed on fingers for fingernails in child's play and used as a hat for dolls. Start looking at your gardens differently. They are a toy shop.

Allium. They are one of the most successful things I grow in my garden. If you get the Van Bourgondien Catalog, they have a wonderful selection of Alliums. They are very simple to grow especially in containers. I had a woman in Pennsylvania tell me that Alliums were her faerie wands when she was growing up. She would put lightning bugs in the hollow stem and tie it in a knot, then use it like a Luke Skywalker stick. Also, when they flower, the heads are great for crafts projects.

I went to a wonderful garden called Madoo in Sagaponack on Long Island,New York. He had a bowl of just the heads of the Allium. It was exquisite. They are a very good bee plant, and they are very good for skippers and butterfly.

What you see as a beautiful field of poppies in California, I see in a different way. The Spaniards called these "chiclettes", and they'd chew the orange blossoms as a gum. They were also called "dormideras" or little sleepyheads. They close up rapidly when it's stormy or on a gray day. Kids love to come and watch them close. Kids absolutely love it.

In the 1800s, Spaniards believed that if they blended the leaves and roots with bear fat and rubbed it on their bald heads, they'd grow hair overnight.

Rosa rugosa. It grows right in front of my house in Maine. It's a low upkeep rose. I don't allow any spraying of any herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides on anything in my garden (applause) because kids will put things in their months and it's bad for the earth.

I want you know that it is more than a rose. It is a tea; the flower petals are good as a tea: the rosehips are good as a tea. They are high in Vitamin A and C. I lectured at an international conference on children's gardening in Sweden and learned that the Swedes make rosehip soups. They need to get their vitamins A and C all times of the year when they don't have other plants available. It's also used in potpourri. It has multiple uses.

In Child Life in Colonial Days from 1898, Alice Morse Earle wrote about finding a rosehip stuck with a little thorn and a twig for a handle to make a tea pot for kids, Kids like to know that the Native American Indians in California called it "ska pash wee" meaning "mean old lady she bits me." I was in the garden and I heard a little boys say "ska pash wee," and I thought, "Oops, he's got a rose bite.

I love Alchemilla or lady's mantel, I show kids the dew drop captured in the leaf. The dew drop was collected in a vial and used to wash eyes and skin. It was believed that if a lady rubbed this on her skin, she would get ride of wrinkles and become beautiful. I'll go out in the garden and find kids showing their parents and actually using the dew drop.

I named my business Heart's Ease. Heart's Ease is the ancient name for Johnny-jump-up. My family was Quaker, and my grandmother would make me a heart's ease tea, and she'd give me a heart's ease bouquet. So when I planted my garden, I planted lots of heart's ease because I wanted to give a bouquet to my town. If you look at ancient records, you'll find that heart's ease contains saponins that act as a diuretic. So they were used for heart ailments.

Jane briefly mentioned Tina James magic evening primrose, and I always loved evening primrose. This plant is one of most phenomenal plants to include in your garden. I have it in a large terra cotta container.

I am never let down by this plant. There will be 10 to 15 people around it at sunset waiting for it to open. I wrote about in my June (1997) column in Country Living GARDENER . It opens in approximately 17 seconds. Observe its sepals folding back, the pistols protruding, the pedal of the the yellow blossom pooching out, and all of sudden, "poom." It's open and the kids are absolutely enthralled. And then soon, the sphinx moths come. It's a fabulous plant.

Borage, the herb of courage, was tucked in a knight armor to keep them protected them when they went off to war, It' has a wonderful edible flower.We also include it because it's friendly to bees.
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Kids love to use the blossoms in ice cream and in salad. I like to tell the story of my husband's adorable Italian aunt who came for our wedding reception. I had frozen borage flowers and heart's ease in hundreds of ice cubes. When I came back to our house the day of our wedding reception, there was a pile of melting mound of ice cubes in the kitchen, and Aunt Jean said, "Kid, you had the dirtiest ice cubes."

I also like to float a lot of flowers in my birdbath. I make constant tapestries in my birdbath. Kids love flowers in bird baths.

I had a class of 50 people at my house and I decided to do that in my toilet. I had borage flowers, johnny-jump-ups, pansies, and impatiens floating in the toilet. After I served tea, about 20 minute later, the first woman went into the bathroom, and there was no flushing sound. It took seven people before we heard a flush. So, if you really want to excite kids, fill up some birdbaths and toilets with flowers. Remember, we are breaking down all the barriers. We're taking the plants everywhere, even into the toilet.

Dianthus were called sops-in-wine and clove gilliflower, You can dry these fragrant flowers for use in potpourri or for pressing, They are great in salads or in ice cream. I like to gather them and place them in layers in sugar, so that the sugar takes on the essence of this plant, It makes a great ground cover, and it's very easy for kids to grow. So, you can use it in art, in historically in potpourri, and in cooking. That's what I like about these old fashioned plants.

One of my favorites is scarlet runner beans. Give kids an environment that can envelope them in foliage and flowers. And, not just in the foliage, but also all the critters that depend on these things. They will see hummingbirds feeding at this plant. They can eat these fabulous flower. They can use them in cooking, They'll see see critters laying eggs.They'll see things hiding out. They'll see birds, bats, birds and bats. So, envelope them in an exciting hideaway. Always try to remember how you felt as a child and what excited you.

What do you get when you grow these? One of the things we get is lots of hummingbirds. And if you look closely, this little Anise is sitting on a nest. Kids can actually watch her gathering fuzz from Asclepias and from woolly lambs ear, bits of comb web, and bits of lichen and moss. Kids get excited to see all these parts of a plant, not only feeding a critter, but also going into making her home. And, the amazing thing is that this nest is smaller than a fifty cent piece. And, you haven't seen anything crowded until you see two of those babies crammed in there with their beaks sticking up. It is so wonderful. It isn't hands on learning. It's definitely eyes on and hearts on learning.

Jane was talking about her prehistoric garden. You can easily do it in a bucket or half barrel. One of the banes of my garden has been Equisetum. You may know it is scouring brush. If you take your kids out and let them rub their hands up and down the Equisetum, they'll feel the silica that make is such a good scourer. It was usually latched together with a piece of grass or rush, and used to scour out shells and pots. It was also used to treat heart ailments. It is, however, very dangerous to use.

Kids really get excited when they find out that these plants were around when dinosaurs walked the earth. But, these plants have made some dramatic changes. For instance, 250 million years ago this Equisetum grew 60 feet high.

So ,when you have kids out in the garden, you can point to a Monterey pine or you can point to a giant maple tree that's 50 to 60 feet tall, and say, "Just imagine when a scouring rush was 60 feet tall."

You can't have Ceanothus without having Ceanothus moths, and Ceanothus is native throughout much of the United States. Let the kids go out and gather the blossoms. The leaves are good in a tea, and it's also a natural soap. It's great for lathering hair or skin. And, if you're really lucky, you'll see the caterpillar of the hair streak butterfly and different moths.

Calendula and woolly lambs ear. I'm sorry, calendula, plain old pot marigold, No other marigold is as great as far as I'm concerned. None of these fancy hybrids. Calendula, or marigold for the virgin Mary, got it's name because it is said to blossom on the first calendar day of each month. It does in California. I don't think it does in Ithaca, New York, in the winter.

The kids use the petals in rice dishes and in salads. You can make dyes and inks, and they attract skippers and butterflies. Calendula was used as a tincture to wash wounds clear up until the Second World War, and actually that tincture is still used in many parts of the world as an antiseptic.

Nestled right next to Calendula is a very important plant in a children's garden. One that kids love above all, and that is woolly lamb's ear. Have you ever felt it? Kids call it rabbit's ear. They get so excited when they touch it, and when you explain to them that long before Johnson & Johnson was making plastic boxes of bandaids, this is what people used to bind onto their wounds. It was held in place with a piece of grass.

So, there we have a tincture that is a healer and we have an actual bandaid. The genius and species or common name of a plant often leads you down a trail of history and exploration. Lamb's ear also has the name "woolly wound wort" because it was used to bind wounds. So, always look at the names of the plant and try to figure out how they got their names. I want people to realize the deep reaching roots of these plants.

I received a letter from a woman in Holland after I lectured in Sweden. She said in Holland, because it's so cold in the winter, some people lay a leaf of woolly lamb's ears on the bridge of their nose so that their glass won't freeze to their face.(laughter)

Foxglove is not in my children's garden because it is extremely poisonous. But I do think it is important. Think about the history of foxglove. It's called "folks gleow," because it resembles the music instrument of bells. Or it's called "fox fingers," or "folks gloves," because it was believed little folks wore them. Or, they'll call it "fairy's hat." I like to show children the inside to see if they can follow the nectar trails that the bumble bees follow. And then tell them that in 1565, Dr. Withering claimed responsibility for discovering the healing properties of Digitalis purpurea . But, female simpliers were out there picking digitalis and using it as a "simple" for many hundreds of years before Dr. Withering.

The kids really love learning about this. They love finding out about poisonous plants. We really make a point of teaching about poisonous plant and letting them know that you cannot stick things in your mouth. You need to know what's poisonous. Sturtevant's Guide to Edible Plants is one of the main books we use as a guide. You have to be very careful about what you eat, what you put in your mouth. There are a lot of books out there on edible flowers and some list things that are very poisonous and lists some of them as an edible plant.

For instance, sweet peas are extremely poisonous. You do not want to serve your group of kids a salad with sweet pea flowers or foxgloves. I taught a group of kids about the healing properties of digitalis, and three weeks later a little boy brought his parents back and said, "This is the heart plant. Why didn't we know about this when grandma was so sick?" He never forgot.

Whenever I teach a science class or a science project, I tie in the history and folklore, and kids don't forget. Maria Montessori said that kids have minds like absorbent sponge, They have minds more absorbent than any sponge.

I think you could have a garden for kids and just have a pumpkin. I even called my friend Betsy Williams and asked, "What would you call the top plant in a children's garden." I had already written down my choice as pumpkins. Without hesitation she said, "Pumpkins!" And I thought, "Okay. I'm vindicated"

Pumpkins get more kisses and hugs and thumps and bumps that any plant in the garden, and what better way to teach the history of a plants than to show where pumpkins originated.

Pumpkins have multiple personalities; they can be used for many things. Kids love it when they can have their own name sake pumpkin. When the pump is green in the field, go out and scratch a phrase, a name, a poem, or a "welcome" sign. As the pump grows, a scab forms and the writing grows. My son is 25 and he still makes me scratch his name in a pumpkin every winter. And, they'll last for seven or eight months.

You can make pumpkin soup and use the pumpkin as a tureen. You can use the seeds to eat or for jewelry or mosaic. So, think about multiple uses.

I love nasturtiums. They're an all around multiple personality plant . Kids use these as hats for their dolls. When the leaves are up turned, their medallion shaped leaves collect one silver drop of dew in the middle that looks just like mercury. Kids will get out there and play with that one drop, I heard a "yes" from the audience; they love it, I ask kids, "Guess what this name means? It means nasus tortus or nose twister." I'll say, "Take a bite of this leaf" and they go "Oh, puh!". It's a nose twister. Sometimes it's a nasty one when it's old. I use it in cooking. I use the leaves and the seed pods. Fresh and fat, they taste like radishes.

Snap dragons are one of the most favored plants of kids. How many of you have played dragon wars with the snap dragons? Yeh, I know. I couldn't pass one up.

We use them as jewelry. Kids clip them on as ear rings. They clip them on clothes. They make puppets out of them. If you read Gertrude Jekyll's old book Children and Gardens , she wrote a fascinating story about seed pods looking like a little old wizened lady. They used to put them on a pin and use them as a puppet.

When I was a child, my best friend Ricky Beauclaire and I would choose a snap dragon, a different color every night, and we'd leave little tiny messages inside. I'd say, "Yellow. Snapdragon," and he'd have to go search the yellow snapdragon for my message. And, everyone knows that a snap dragon is a little mailbox for fairies.

Dittany of Crete was called the forgotten herb. It was lost for over a hundred years. If you read Herbs and the Earth by Henry Beston, he describes dittany as his favorite herb, the forgotten herb. Kids love hearing about the origins of it in the high arid cliffs on the island of Crete. It was believed that when a goat was wounded by an arrow, it would seek out a crevice of dittany and rub its body on it. The arrow would be magically extracted, and the wound would heal.

Gourds are great in a children's garden. Besides the fact that they are rampant growers and you can do an immediate enclosure with gourds, you can make puppets and dolls out of them. You can make musical instruments. And most importantly, you can make bird houses. But, you can also make masks and helmets and drums and banjos from a gourd patch. Just incredible things from a gourd patch. It does have its drawback. I had a hideout for kids, and they used them as punching bags. But, it 's their garden.

I wrote down my favorite story told to me by a woman in 1983. It was the heart of my book Sunflower Houses . It was based on a family that was too poor to have a fancy playhouse, so they planted a six foot by nine foot living playhouse with towering sunflowers and a roof of Heavenly Blue morning glories. Skippy is now in her late 80's, and she said that those were the best days of her life.

I got a letter from a doctor in Michigan and he said, "Your Sunflower Houses didn't work." I thought, "Oh great!" He added, "It just didn't work. I've got 15 grandkids, so I had to do a sunflower mansion. A five room mansion."

Hilltop Gardens in Indiana did a really neat thing. They did a big circle with an entry way and a center pole. They grew Heavenly Blue morning glories up the center pole. It looks like a giant circus tent. Think of a sunflower house with as just a stepping stone to all kinds of outdoor playhouses.

At the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden, they had to reinforce the walls with a board to keep kids from tearing though. She has sunflower stepping stones, and sunflower bench. I used half rounds of tree logs for stools because I try and keep it natural looking,

One of most important plants in any garden when you are working with kids is fennel or dill. Fennel is easier. When you look there in the center, if you look really closely, you'll see a cavalier caterpillar wearing his pajamas. That is an Anise swallowtail caterpillar. Sometimes I have 15 or 20 swallowtail caterpillars on fennel. Grow it in a big tub, and kids will have a hands on experience. I worked at a museum in California where all kinds of plants were available and they loved the fennel.

Fennel is very useful. The tops are edible; the roots are edible; they're great roasted. It's known as the original weight watchers' diet drink because it appeases your appetite if you make a tea out of it. It's a multipurpose plant. It's great in salads. I make a fennel, cucumber, and orange salad that is to die for.

Plant a Buddleia, and you'll have a butterfly garden. What more can I say? Kids use the Buddleia bloom in strung necklaces and jewelry. They slip into each other and they stick together. You can make long chains of them.

I mentioned that you could get hairstreaks in your garden. I was looking at property in Maine a couple week ago, and there was a little azure butterfly . I consider it one of the blessings of the earth. The Realtor just slapped it, and I grabbed her hand and told her, "Don't do that. Look at what you are swatting. It's a little azure. Look at the little hair...." By the time we had left, the woman was a converted butterfly watcher.

Plant your nectar plant and plant your host plant. And you can really have a living classroom for your kids.

(Slide of a butterfly house) I know these don't work for most people. They are butterfly houses. I had to put a sign up and I'll tell you why. I had a little kid who said to me, "That's one skinny bird". I said, "No, honey, that's a butterfly house, and I better get a sign up there." At least it teaches them that there are critters that will go under barn shingles and underneath siding that will seek shelter during the winter.

I have a touch tank in my garden. It's 3 feet wide with multitude of plants with papyrus, used for paper making, Equisetum, water iris, water cannas, and azolla, one of the smallest flowering plants in the world. Consider a water element.

Our time is running out now, and I must end this. I would love to talk with you afterwards, but first let me say my thanks and farewells to you all. A few months ago I watched a television special about the incredible development and growth that takes place in a young child's mind. The special mentioned that songbirds, when removed from their parents, or from their kind, will never sing. I shuddered when I heard that immediately thinking of our children.

Our kids are removed from us so early. Because of financial hardship, the stresses of work, and broken families, they spend so much of their childhoods alone. I couldn't help thinking that without a mentor, a caring someone, whether it is a family member or teacher, these kids will never learn the song of life. They will never learn to love and respect the earth or to appreciate all of the miracles surrounding them. YOU are the key to this problem. YOU teachers and educators, Master Gardeners, and Extension Service people, YOU are the ones who will sing the song of life and humanity, and pass it on to the next generation of children. Thank you.