Friday, 4 April 2014

KIDS LOVE FOR PLANTS

 
 
 
I love to sit and watch the beautiful flowering plants, walking in the woods, observing varied and interesting shades of trees.But, growing plants is essentially not my thing, beyond watering the existing plants and putting up multiple money plants in glass bottles,because they look refreshing and need almost zero maintenance.
 
On the other hand my 5 yr old son loves plants genuinely and takes great care of them. He was taught at school that sun, soil & water are plants best friends.He is amazed at how a big tree comes out of a tiny seed, out of this curiosity he put few fenugreek seeds in 5 pots, He started  with ploughing soil with his tiny fingers, sowing seeds, watering them regularly, checking them for right sunlight, also some moonlight:), they were healthy big greens by the tenth day, I asked him to pluck them for me to cook. He was absolutely disappointed at this idea.

Out of disappointment, he found a way to save his plants from me. This time he picked up some tamarind seeds lying on his school walk way, he came home and secretly took out those seeds and dug out some soil in the backyard and put those seeds, and very hopefully asked me if these seeds will grow into a tree as big to give tamarind by his next birthday!
 
The same day I gave him a guava to eat while I was driving and asked him to eat it completely, as it is home grown. He paused and asked me "ma how can you waste if this guava was bought, that also would have been lovingly grown by some tree right??" I felt a little small but was happy he thinks this way.

One afternoon as he came back from school, he was jumping with excitement saying " I got something for you", as chocolates, homework, new project ran in my mind, he slowly pulled out
some flowers from his pocket, they were crushed, withered & dull. When I asked why he plucked those flowers from the plant, he replied " I dint pluck them ma, they were falling continuously and lying on the play ground, everybody was stamping, so I picked a few for you" Some Evenings, when he watches me or the granny next door fixing the pipe to water the plants, he runs to push us and waters, extra waters till we say the plants might die if you give anymore water.

On one of their visits, his grand mom who has a very good green thumb, takes growing plants as her serious hobby so much so that she cooks 15 days a month from her very own kitchen garden.In our back yard, she had planted two accidentally broken stems and asked my son to water them every day. One week later both stems were completely dried, so I asked him not to water them as they were already dead. But he was persistent and watered them each day, 2 months passed and we saw 3 tiny, shiny leaves on the brownish green twigs getting ready to become  plants from dried twigs. He smiled and jumped with excitement that they survived. He proved me wrong & I was happy for that. He taught me hope indeed has power that day with his happiness.

I hope his nature to nurture the nature stays with him for life. Love plants.. love life !!


 

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