GroHappy

Pounding life into flowers

Smash. Thump. Thwack.

“I can’t believe how beautiful this looks!”

“This doesn’t look like yours.”

“It’s better to do it on the floor.”

Perhaps I should back up a bit.

The last horticultural therapy session that I held at Ann’s Place focused on flower pounding. Whereas a 60’s love child who grooved around Flower Power focused around expressing their hidden emotions via hallucinogenics, flower pounding is about expressing the color and pattern of the flower of choice.  Most of the people who came to my session did not know what to expect and mused about the strange request on the sign-up sheet—“Bring a rubber mallet if you have one.”

The first client came armed with her mallet proud that she was able to purchase it for $2 at a local thrift shop. “It was a great bargain,” she crowed while swinging it in hand like Thor. As others started to file in they too were puzzled about what we would do but interested as nearly a dozen pansies and three large cineraria were stationed around the table.

“It’s great that so many of you have brought mallets,” I said. “It will make the project so much easier. What we will be doing today is creating art out of flowers through smashing them with a hammer.”

As many looked at me with a skeptical glare, I passed around some samples of prior “art” to show them the patterns that they could expect to get from the flowers. Some were shocked at the result and as the rest examined the pictures I described how to pound flowers.

“Everyone gets two pieces of paper to use to create their impressions. It is pretty simple. First you place the flower face down on your paper keeping in mind you want to spread the petals   Next you cover it with a paper towel and then pound away a few times.”

I put my pansy down on the watercolor paper, cut off the back stem so that it would smooch down well, covered it and pounded away. Nuts.

When I pulled away the paper towel, I discovered that the image was muddy and incomplete. Not at all like other pansy prints I had created. What could be wrong?

As I sheepishly revealed my image to the class, I thought that the problem may be with the table. It was a wobbly plastic affair that flexed and moved as I walloped the flower. I tried another on the corner of the table, which had better support.

Success!

I told the class to try to find a more solid part of the table to hit but a few students decided to literally hit the floor to get better results. And they did.

Some clients were tentative at first but everyone soon got into the spirit and were populating their paper with different shapes and blooms. Soon everyone was flailing away swinging their hammers with abandon like John Henry.

“Can we pound the leaves?,” asked one client.

“The viola leaves don’t transfer well but I don’t know about the cineraria leaves,” I replied.

That motivated a one client to remove a leaf and give it a good smack. The result was stunning.

Even the efforts that were incomplete had a beauty to them with the opportunity to augment nature by using Sharpies and colored pencils.

One client’s first attempts produced an image that was not pleasing to her. “This doesn’t look right,” she said. "Don’t worry about the first image, it’s the composite of all your attempts that will define your art. Try another flower on top and create an image of a bouquet.”

Another client was becoming in the words of a friend, “the teacher’s pet.” She started on the floor and composed a beautiful mosaic of flowers making some appear to pop out of the page. Her poundings were magnificent.

Soon everyone had a portrait that they were proud of. I even got Wilda to come down and smack a single flower transferring the image perfectly onto the paper. She added a Sharpie stem to her pounding, looking quite pleased with herself. She was not alone. Though we only had two different types of flowers and just a couple of colors, everyone created unique images that they were pleased with. When I told everyone to take a pansy plant home with them it was an extra bonus that few had expected. A few were looking forward to taking flowers from home and continuing their pounding. I just hope that they will leave a few flowers for the nose, the eyes and the bees.

Tussie-mussie mashup

After a series of natural mishaps, I have finally been able to start the horticultural therapy program at Ann’s Place. While 2011 was the year of building out the landscaping, this year I hope to build out programs as well as a number of therapeutic gardens. Creating tussie-mussies would be my first project.  Tussie-mussies were popular among women in Victorian England in the 19th century and represented the high point of flowers as an expression of language. There were countless pocket volumes of books that became essential companions of young women attempting to decipher the meaning of a bouquet. Red rose means passionate love, a daisy, innocence and rosemary, remembrance. During the heyday of tussie-mussies young women would consult a variety of different “floral dictionaries” to discern the true meaning of a received bouquet from a suitor or friend.

While flowers are often considered to be expressions of beauty and loveliness, they can also have not-so-nice meanings. For example, the combination of foxglove, nettle, lettuce, and a yellow carnation would basically say “ I have distain (yellow carnation) for you, you cruel (nettle), cold-hearted (lettuce), insincere (foxglove) person. If you add the herb valerian (shown on the left) to the mix you add the insult ‘drunk and slutty.’ This is probably a flower you never want to include in any bouquet (unless you want to break up with someone.)

But none of these plants were part of the bunch I put together for the half dozen or so of clients I had to work with. All save one were women. While many had a good background with flowers, few knew of the tussie-mussie story, which goes back to Aztec and Middle-Age cultures.

You can make a tussie-mussie with just a few flowers but given the fact that I didn’t know what people would want to say I had to collect a wide variety of flora, some of which I clipped from my yard and surrounding gardens.  They were:

Arborvitae—Unchanging friendship
Baby’s breath—Pure heart, festivity
Carnation —Admiration
Carnation, Deep red—Alas, for my poor heart
Carnation, Pink –Woman’s love, beauty, pride
Cedar—Strength
Daffodil—Respect, chivalry, gracefulness
Daisy—Innocence, simplicity
Fern—Fascination, sincerity
Forsythia—Good nature
Holly—Good will, domestic happiness
Ivy—Fidelity
Lily, tiger—Wealth, pride
Moss—Maternal love
Periwinkle—Pleasures of memory
Primrose—Early youth
Rose—Love
Rose, Red—I love you
Rose, Yellow—Friendship
Rosemary—Remembrance
Sage—Virtue, wisdom, skill
Spruce—Farewell, hope in adversity, immortality
Thyme—Activity

As I showed my clients how to put together different bouquets I told them to be watchful in the future of what types of bouquets they purchase from stores as it is easy to make mistakes. I had pictures of four different flower arrangements, each of which looked very nice, each of which had very different meanings. “This one, for instance, is for a hangover as the main flower is hens-and-chicks, which means,’welcome-home-husband-regardless-of-how-drunk-you-are”  One woman mused how perhaps she could send that to her ex.

Cedar, which represents strength, was a favorite adornment but was easily confused with arborvitae (unchanging friendship). While they look very similar, cedar has the smell of cat urine when cut; it was easy to differentiate once with a simple snip. Some of my clients initially made their bouquets too large but were able to scale them down with a bit of help and guidance. It takes a bit of a knack to tie everything together as many people have the tendency to grab a large number of samples and try to tie the group together rather than layer in one or two at a time, attaching them with florist wire.

I created a small tussie-mussie for my wife, showing my clients that bigger is not necessarily better. I picked a red rose, daffodils, periwinkle and primrose. They thought it very beautiful and when I brought it home to Juana (with a crib sheet of meanings) she thought it equally beautiful and sweet and rewarded me with a kiss.

Building a program—Part 1: Fighting the deer

Over the past 4 months or so I have been spending a lot of time at Ann’s Place working to build a series of therapeutic gardens. The first phase of this project is almost done after a series of delays that have been caused by the crummy weather we have had this past summer. In the early summer, we started work with the idea that we would be done by Labor Day. Not so much.

The first project was started last year when we tried to get a jump start on the season by planting 4000 daffodils, creating a nature path and planting two-thirds of our native bushes and trees that was part of a mitigation garden required by the town. It looked great in the fall when we planted it; not so much in the spring after the ungulate version of the Taliban decided to lay waste. Between them and the very dry July we had, over half of the plantings were killed and the other half severely pruned.

But as we discovered this, we were able to reclaim some of the surrounding landscape. Like much of Connecticut, the property was ringed with stone walls that had fallen into disrepair; the prior state of neatly stacked stones appeared more as piles of rubble. Fortunately we had a group of volunteer executives from one of our corporate sponsors that hungered for some heavy duty physical effort. We obliged them.

They were amazing as they did not work as executives often do, sitting down at a conference table munching a Danish while listening to a PowerPoint presentation. Rather they were hauling, prying, moving, wheel barrowing, grunting their way to move the rocks back into place that time, nature and people have moved about.

Within six hours they reclaimed over 400 feet of wall and must have moved 10 tons or more of stone. Not bad for free help.

There was another contingent that was less aggressive in their desires, which was great as I needed a group to weed and plant. I had to be careful with instructions for weeding as the site has a lot of Jack-in-the-pulpit planted as well as other wild flowers. But after a few mis-weeds, they followed instructions well and rid the path and site of crabgrass, garlic mustard and other invasives.

Those who didn’t weed helped plant up 80 ferns and 300 Blue Flag irises, which I used to stabilize a hill and fill in an area that is often wet.

But then came the rainy August and September, which stopped us in our tracks (and that of our outdoor contractors.) With over 25 inches of rain over 60 days if it wasn’t raining, it was drying out. Last week we were able to start anew.

We started by deciding to install over 400 feet of deer fence to create a Green Zone against the deer. Amazingly we were able to use existing trees and dig holes that avoided the vast amount of rock that exists around the site. I was worried that the black steel poles and plastic fencing would detract our view into the woods where a few winterberry and grey dogwoods among the barberry escaped the fate of hungry deer.

But once it was done, like the deer it was blocking, it minimized into the background with notice only when the sun shimmered on its profile. We now needed to start the grading and finish planting the rest of the trees. But most important, all the things we were about to plant would get at least a fighting chance from the deer.

A teddy becomes a grizzly

One of the nicest (and sometimes the most frustrating) things about gardening is the unexpected. In the garden, one of the more pleasant experiences that can manifest itself is an opportunistic crop or plant. For instance, this year an ornamental squash started in my bed where I planted Swiss chard in the spring. So far it has delivered 15 squash with at least another 6 on the way in the next few days. At Green Chimneys this year our opportunistic plant is not squash but sunflowers.

Three years ago we planted three different types of sunflowers: Moulin Rogue (all red), Gigantuous (big and yellow) and Ring of Fire (red in the center, yellow on the edges.) But since then we have not planted a single sunflower but we keep getting more and more sunflowers in the garden with each year. This year they were as thick as chickweed and we needed to pull out a lot more than we would have liked to.

But the interesting thing about these sunflowers is that only a few bear any resemblance to their elderly relatives. We have many different shades and configurations of red and yellow sunflowers in the garden because they have been cross-pollinated with a different cultivars for three years running. So a wild variety of flowers has bloomed with different heights, colors and flower configurations.

We have a couple of sunflowers in the garden that are over 12 feet high with a single defiant spike daring the squirrels to climb and eat (like the one to the right). Others have formed big clumps with small, but tall flowers.

But perhaps the strangest was the mutant Teddy Bear sunflower that appeared a few weeks ago. At the top of one of the large clumps, about 8 feet in the air was a Teddy Bear sunflower blossom about the size of a small seedless watermelon.  Teddy Bear sunflowers grow to a maximum height of two feet, with a smallish flower. This was not your typical teddy bear: it’s a grizzly.

“This must have cross pollinated with a Teddy Bear that was planted in the barrels down by the administration building [about a half mile away],” said Tracy. “It’s pretty cool looking.” Tracy and I agreed to try and save the seed of this big flower so that we could see what its offspring will look like next year.

 

Flower power

As most aspects of the garden wind down, cleaning old beds and pulling dead or soon to die plants takes priority this time of year. It has always seemed bittersweet to liberate plants from the soil right after or even during their peak. That was the case a little over a month ago at Green Chimneys when we needed to pull cosmos from one of the beds near the administration building.

Surprisingly there seemed to be something forbidden about pulling these tall sentinels as many were still in full bloom and had buds to match. I told a couple of co-workers that I would be pulling the plants and they were more than welcome to make a bouquet from the flowers. “That’s great,” said one. “It’s my favorite flower.” She had been a little morose before but the prospect of a colorful bunch of flowers perked her right up.

My charges were also unexpectedly enthusiastic about the chore. They were excited that they would be able to pull these plants from the soil. Kid after kid grabbed a bunch of stems and planted one foot so they could get better leverage to pull the clumps of flowers from the ground. Some of the root masses were huge so they needed a bit of help though the frustration and the resistance given by these soon-to-be-composted plants didn’t bother them.

“By the way Paul, after you finish pulling plants, you can make a bouquet of flowers if you would like,” I said to one of day’s first weeders. Paul loved that idea and worked even harder than he had been before. After he pulled the cosmos he placed them carefully so it would be easy to cull flowers from the newly liberated plants.

But the weeding was not only influencing the children but passers by as well. People were giving us looks while we were weeding so I started to offer them a flower or two. I thought it was a simple gesture as all of these flowers would be returning to the ground. Nearly every time I got a big smile and thanks from those who took a flower.  One social worker with whom I had worked with previously said to us, “This is wonderful. You have made my day.”

It was a big job so I spent most of the day in the beds pulling cosmos and giving flowers to strangers, young and old. Sometimes people asked what we were doing as we were broadcasting the seed heads into the bed so that next year’s flowers would grow. I stopped my pulling and got out my pocket knife  and cut a blossom, a blooming flower and a dried-up seed pod. Using these three examples I explained to them the life cycle of the cosmo and how it reproduces. Most were intrigued and thanked me after they picked a flower or two of their choice.

As I was giving flowers away I thought back to imaginary from the 1960s where “Love,” “Peace” and “Flower Power” represented some of the unifying thoughts of the era’s counter culture and youth as well as the 1980s when I worked in New York City. There I would be given flowers by followers of Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who founded the Unification Church as I neared Penn Station to catch my train home. Unlike these givers, I had no agenda. I just wanted to give a flower to someone to make them happy.

Fall flowers

 

Though a frost has yet to coat my roof with a thin sheen of white, I know it is coming. Leaves fell in great bunches last week, the hostas have browned up and my lawn has put out that last spurt of growth requiring a final trim. I’ve been building an increasing amount of fires in the stove during the evenings to take the chill out of the house and soon it will become more of an around-the-clock activity.

In the midst of this move to dormancy there are still a few things out that give the impression that a bounty of growing plant life will continue: fall flowers.

The flowers of autumn have always been a little special to me as they come late and welcome reaching their peak when everything else is going to sleep. Their late push for pollination seems strange as many of the geese have flown south and the only bees around should be wearing tiny little jackets to combat the cold.

Mums or chrysanthemums are the flowers that everyone expects to see but they have become so over bred and intolerant of the cold that they have become the new annual that gets planted in September and pulled out in the next few weeks. Arriving at the local nurseries in full bloom, you often don’t get to appreciate their life cycle. One mum that is able to stick around is the Montauk Daisy (Nipponanthemum nipponicum), which has become my largest fall-flowering bush.

During the summer as it fills out you wonder if it will actually bloom as its buds are difficult to discern. But around mid-September the buds start to form and swell and then by early to mid October an explosion of daisies hit. Now they are on their death throws exuding a pungent odor that only can come from a mum or some little creature that died.

Their cousins, the asters. don’t have as large a display, either by sight or fragrance. They tend to make a more understated statement though a few new asters I planted last year have exploded with growth and flowers. One I planted last year was only 2 inches high and this year has become full and bushy. Its neighbor, a marigold that came from a prior year’s self-seeding appear as a unlikely pair of comrades each challenging the other to put out more blooms. This marigold has been blooming since early summer and through drought and slugs continues to expand until the end.

The witchhazel has started to bloom sending out its delicate yellow flowers. It is early this year as last year it did not start to flower until December. My witchhazel sends out tiny and sometimes insignificant flowers as the thick maple and oak trees above still shade out much light. It struggles to bloom but every year manages to eke out a few flowers.

Then there are the plants that shouldn’t be flowering but continue to. The clematis continues to put on a show as does the butterfly bush. The butterfly bushes we have near the driveway appear impervious to the weather putting on blooms and keeping their leaves almost into Christmas. Perhaps the water pipe from the well that is near their roots is giving them just enough heat to keep them going deep into the fall season. Regardless while most of the blooms have gone to seed a few moths still visit, looking for a drink.

And the rose bushes often keep building buds that explode into flowers when they should be slowing down. Our roses are tricksters in that they serve up bountiful bouquets in the late spring and then just put on foliage. Then right before I need to mulch them they start setting buds and flowers again as if to say it is too early to put them to bed.

The nasturtiums are still giving us flowers, which will add to our salads daily giving them a nice, peppery kick. We haven’t gotten too many seeds from them as we are eating too many of the flowers. The strangest flower this year is the sweet pea, which has decided to bloom again and set more seeds. Its delicate blue flower seems to be no match for the cold and wind to come. Every morning I get up not knowing but hoping that it will still greet me when I go out for the newspaper.

(My wife suggests that I insert a color disclaimer into this piece as I am red-green color blind.)

Capitol arboretums and botanic gardens

While most of the tourists in Washington D.C. go to places like the Air & Space or Holocaust Museums, we spent much of our spare time last weekend at the National Arboretum and Botanic Garden. As the weather was hot and thick with humidity, the opportunity to spend some reflective time walking among tropical trees, Asian gardens and rare plants was a welcome diversion.

We first visited the National Arboretum whose plantings were more temperate in nature. In walking through the grounds I realized how many of the plants we have in our garden that are not native to the Americas but rather to Asia. Hostas, rhododendrons, azaleas, rhubarb, Japanese maples, white birch and others are far more common in my yard than my native plantings such as witch hazel, American holly, mountain laurel and day lilies.

As an Arboretum it seemed less developed than others I had been to. Perhaps that is due to the research charter of the facility. There were a variety of different planting areas and exhibits such as bonsai and the Grove of State Trees. But much of it seemed left to nature’s whim as if the intense planning and control of a Federal Government had no place here. Ironically a plaza with the columns of the old Capitol building was surrounding by fields of clover and high grass appearing as would a skinny Stonehenge without apparent purpose or focus.

This like other museums we visited had an energy conservation theme as it showed how different plants could be used to generate power. The castor bean has great promise though the Arboretum didn’t at all inform the reader of its deadly properties, In fact many of the Arboretum’s plants identified by Amy Stewart’s excellent book, “Wicked Plants,” as potentially lethal are not looked in that light in the least.

The Botanic (rather than the botanical) garden was much more organized in keeping with its adjacent location to the U.S. Capitol Building. But like the U.S. Government, a labyrinth of paths and rooms led to a wide variety of unrelated ecosystems and vegetation and confusion.  Unlike government entities, however, getting lost and disoriented was half the fun as we traversed from a tropical jungle to a dry desert to a temperate children’s garden.

As we entered the garden we were greeted by a fruiting cacao tree, which had been pollinated by garden workers rather than by the more natural method of tiny flies native to the Andes and Central America. My wife Juana (pictured above with my brother Craig) looked at the pods of pre-chocolate in a greedy way wishing she could grab one and release its gooey innards. She was similarly tempted when she saw a flowering banana tree as well as papaya. All of her tropical buttons were triggered reminding me of stories of her youth when she and her sisters would take the flower of a banana tree and use it for play. I had no such youthful memories on Long Island, where the most exotic plant to me was a skunk cabbage.

The garden also had a variety of carnivorous plants very much like the ones I propagate. They are all considered endangered because of the loss of wetlands areas and I wish I had a bog where I could begin to repopulate these hungry and (to some) malevolent plants. The garden had a particularly magnificent specimen  of a Nepenthes ventricosa pitcher plant that I wanted to take home. Alas I kept my hands in my pockets and slinked on by.

One of the problems I always have in these types of gardens is the struggle to follow the rules: don’t touch, don’t take. Like a greedy slug or groundhog I want to devour and take samples so I can grow copies of these wonderful plants in my garden. My wife often needs to slap my hand or tug at me when the temptation is too strong.

One exhibit where this was not a problem was the Plants in Culture exhibit where we were all encouraged to smell the spices and flowers. In fact, many of the flowers being exhibited were rendered in stainless steel and aluminum rather than composed of chlorophyll and leafy or woody material. Poppies, sunflowers, bird’s of paradise and other flowers were built to last through many seasons and the potential abuse of visitors.

Upon walking out to the Mall from the Botanic Garden, it occurred to me how sterile our Nation’s main plaza is. Trees and grass. The American standard. It is a pity that the Mall could not better reflect the diversity that we saw last weekend. Perhaps when the Mall is finally restored such a vision will be realized. I doubt it.

Christmas roses

We went to get our Christmas tree this past weekend but before we left we got a two-inch blast of snow that left a clear coat of white over the garden and the rest of the yard. So before the snow arrived I took one last tour of the garden to see if there had been any tasks that had been missed. The hoop houses were secure, holes in the fence repaired, the leaves all raked, the garlic and strawberries bedded under a blanket of straw and the roses mulched.

As I passed a few of the rose bushes I noticed that a pair of tiny pink and a bunch of red roses were confused and making a display for insects that had long since left the garden. So with my trusty Felcos I cut them and brought them in for my wife who has been enjoying them with her meals as a reminder of what to hope for in the warmer months ahead.

The pink roses were almost spent but the red rose had a fat and ripening bud that has not disappointed us over the last few days as it has swelled and should reach a full display later this week. It is these small miracles that give us solace and an expectation that this season of impending darkness and chill is but a respite for the warmer, more lighted days and months ahead.

A few years ago I planted a trio of hellebores or Christmas roses as they are more commonly known. I had hoped that they would live up to their promise of exotic and bountiful blooms in the snow during the late winter. Unfortunately I have not had that type of luck with them though last year one gave up flowers in late April.

After my harvest of roses I checked the base of these perennials and noticed that all had fat little buds embedded in the ground looking as if they were ready to bloom. They are now covered with a veneer of snow though parts of their variegated  leaves are pushing through. Perhaps this will be my year.

November bouquets

With Thanksgiving a few days away, I continue to scurry in the garden so I can finish all my chores before the snows hit. Given the spate of warm weather we have had this fall, this urgency may be the result of an unwarranted fear borne from years when snow has covered the ground from Thanksgiving to tax time. You never know when it is going to hit.

So yesterday’s chore was to cut back all the remaining irises, lilies, hostas and other plants that were on their way out or close to it.

As I started to cut back some of the Montauk daisies (a type of chrysanthemum) I noticed that some of their blooms were still fresh on the stem. I cut the better looking ones and was able to form a small bouquet. It made me think and consider how many other flowers were still out in my yard. There were more than I would have thought.

Ironically most of the other chrysanthemums that we had bought a few months back had already bloomed and died back. Even though sold as perennials, the mums we are able to purchase at local nurseries are merely annuals and the flowers are often short-lived though lush and full. The Montauk daisies, on the other hand, are very hardy and have wintered over for the last four years. Their blooms may not be as exaggerated as garden-variety mums, but they are dependable and comforting.

Walking around the side of the house, I was pleasantly surprised to see that our Shasta daisies were doing equally well. I cut a few of them. To put together my bouquet, I took a fairly large tour of the property as I was unsure of what I would find or how it would hit me. I decided to take this opportunity to wander and explore so that I could discover and spontaneously choose flowers (and other plants) of my liking.

Strangely a yellow butterfly bush I had planted a few years ago was still full of bright yellow plumes, some of which I took. Next to that bush a purple cousin had long since gone to seed. But the delicate texture of cone-like spires gave them a life that I thought would look well in a vase.

I then walked over to our rose bushes and found that one of our shrubs had a spray of tiny pink roses, perfect for my collection. I snipped just what I needed leaving developing buds in the unrealistic hope that I will be able to get another harvest this December.

All the obvious flowers had been picked so I started to look for the unobvious. I found a specimen in our winterberry, which had long since dropped its leaves but was full of fat red berries. The winterberry (ilex verticillata) is a holly, one of the few that are deciduous, and can easily be confused with a viburnum this time of year. The berries stood in sharp contrast to its gray bark and their shape would add a nice contract to the other plants I have picked.

The last flower was a surprise as neither me nor my wife planted it.  Corydalis lutea or yellow corydalis has become a weed on our property; we pull it as much as we keep it.  I barely noticed that it was still delivering clusters of delicate trumpet-like yellow flowers. It would fill in open spaces nicely.

So rather than just cut down and compost I was able to arrange a bouquet of Montauk and Shasta daisies, butterfly bush florets and set seeds, winterberry, Corydalis lutea and a collection of shrub rose flowers. Unusual and pleasing for a November afternoon. As I was picking the roses, an adjacent bush was pushing out red buds that would be ready within a week if they don’t get hit hard by a frost. Perhaps we will have a red Thanksgiving rose from our garden. I’ll take a look in a few days.

Pruning expectations

One of the things that is always a bit of a crap shoot in the garden is introducing a tool to a child. You never know how much experience or aptitude they have and you are always on edge as to how well and safely they can use what you place in their hands. Even something as elemental as a shovel may be totally unknown to a child. In certain circumstances it can be turned into a weapon.

For me that has not been the case so far and my largest concerns have been two fold: How to make the children feel successful with a tool and for the children not to hurt themselves (or me) while using it. This came to mind recently with different children as we were cutting stevia and sage to dry.

The project we were working on was straight forward: Cut two-thirds of the growth off each plant, collect a small bundle of branches, tie the branches together in a bundle and then hang them in the shed to dry . The first child Alec (not his real name,) had little trouble with the chore or the tool. After I showed him the locking mechanism of the Felco #6 pruners I gave him, he was able to figure out where to cut, how to organize the cuttings and group them after being trimmed and then hung them in the shed. He was a natural and even though it was the first time he used pruners, he mastered the tool quickly.

But my next charge, William (not his real name,) was an entirely different story. The locking mechanism was a puzzlement to him. At the start he couldn’t figure out how to open the pruner by engaging the locking mechanism even though I showed him how it worked. I needed to demonstrate the action of the pruner and assist William quite a few times before he could open and close it with ease. Then it was time to cut. While in certain ways he more clever and advanced than Alec, he could not understand the concept of two-thirds. I altered the cut length to one-half, but that didn’t work either.

So to have a successful session, I grabbed each branch and told William to cut it right below my fingers, about 1 inch. In the beginning for me, this was a little dangerous as William found it difficult to regulate the distance between the cutting blades of the pruners and my fingers. Sometimes he was 6 inches off, other times he was too close for comfort. But after a half dozen attempts he was able to cut the branches about 1 inch below my fingers. I took the sage and dropped it into a small pile next to us.

When we were ready to tie bundles of sage I told William to take four branches, match the ends together and then hold the bunch so I could tie it up. He said fine and then dropped the pruner on the ground.

“William, why did you drop the pruner?” Nothing. He stared. I picked up the pruner.

“Please William, look at the pruner. What do you see?”

“Dirt and stuff.”

“That’s right and that dirt and stuff will clog the pruner and make the blades dull. Remember what I told you before. When you finish using the pruner, you lock the blade and then put it in your pocket.”

He nodded. I had him clean the blades, lock the pruner and place it into his pocket. We then tied bundles of sage. He didn’t drop the pruner for the rest of our time together easily moving back and forth between cutting the sage and helping me tie it into bundles.

Then there was George (not his real name) who earlier in the day was unable to safely use the pruner. Like Alec, George was able to figure out the mechanics of the pruner quickly and could use it well to harvest lettuce. But when we stopped to take a break, George took the pruner and placed the space between his thumb and index finger between the blades of the pruner.

“George,” I said in a firm but calm manner. “What you are doing now isn’t safe. Stop.”  He followed my instruction but within a minute he repeated his prior action.

“OK George. Why don’t we mix it up a bit and I will cut the lettuce and you place it in the bin.” He thought that was a great idea as the lettuce we needed to harvest was in the center of the row and hard for him to reach without stepping in the garden. I took the pruner from him and we finished our activity without incident.

I often wonder how far I should let the children go when faced with this type of choice. I don’t think that George realized the danger of his actions, but I didn’t want to take too many chances and have him slice a piece of his hand off. As it was, we had a good work session and he was happy as I took him back to class. Next time I give George pruners, I’ll have a more controlled activity so that he will learn how to use them safely. Or so I hope.