The Memorial Garden

[alt_neville]

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.

Comments

I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good

[alt_neville]

My ruddy back is KILLING me from putting in all those stupid plaques, the ones for the base of all the memorial trees. Ostentatious monstrosities. Could you possibly squeeze any more curlicues onto a flat surface?

(I'm surprised she didn't insist each one include an etching of a kitten or something. Urgh.)

Like I said, not all the trees are here yet, but the ones for Amycus and Alecto Carrow have arrived.

I'm gonna sow salt under the roots and gird the bark all the way around before I plant them, just under the surface of the soil.

Those suckers won't put out a single bloody leaf. Ha!

[alt_pomona]

I certainly appreciate your diligence and attention to each and every step of the process, Mr Longbottom. And I am extremely pleased with the overall plan you designed, given the specifications and functional limitations you had to work with.

(Do consider writing up the process, would you? It'd be quite helpful to others later, or we could work it into a journal article for you.)

I do ask everyone seeing it to recall that the grandest garden plans take years, sometimes decades, to become fully apparent. They are built, slowly and consistently, over time, just as the education of our students should be,