Neville Longbottom (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alt_neville) wrote2013-04-22 08:57 pm
alt_neville) wrote2013-04-22 08:57 pm
The Memorial Garden
Professor Sprout and I and a few other volunteers have been getting our boots mucky, walking through the area planned for the Memorial Garden, and using charms and transfiguration spells to lay the walkways and set up the beds. We were a bit anxious at first that the soil was too alkaline for many of the plants we had planned to put in, so we've been working in peat moss, down to a depth of six inches. The soil quality is very good otherwise: excellent drainage, nice and rich--lots of additional compost helped. We turn up worms every time we turn a spade. I always get so happy whenever I see them; they're perfect for aeration.
So now we're ready to start planting, and the plants are beginning to arrive! The ones I've ordered, I mean, aside from the ones that Professor Sprout has to spare from the Greenhouses. It's really exciting to see the plans I've sketched out begin to take shape. One of the commercial greenhouses we'd ordered from had a shipping delay, so some of the trees won't be coming in when we expect them, but we should have most of the shrubs put in on schedule. Of course, there won't be as much colour this first year, since the bulbs that really liven up the palette won't get planted until next autumn. Still, I think there will be enough in the ground by the time the students go home that everyone will have a pretty good idea of what it's supposed to look like.
So now we're ready to start planting, and the plants are beginning to arrive! The ones I've ordered, I mean, aside from the ones that Professor Sprout has to spare from the Greenhouses. It's really exciting to see the plans I've sketched out begin to take shape. One of the commercial greenhouses we'd ordered from had a shipping delay, so some of the trees won't be coming in when we expect them, but we should have most of the shrubs put in on schedule. Of course, there won't be as much colour this first year, since the bulbs that really liven up the palette won't get planted until next autumn. Still, I think there will be enough in the ground by the time the students go home that everyone will have a pretty good idea of what it's supposed to look like.
Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Before I learned about magic, I might have agreed with you, what? But I think it's clear that plants do feel and in some cases think and behave. Mandrakes, for example. Perhaps it's necessary to butcher them but I don't think one takes glee in the act or finds it to be a tremendously clever thing to do.
Look, I don't want to sound like a bally old girl's blouse about it. I just.... Neville's too good a chap to do something like this. But his mind's obviously made up.
-Justin