Our New Brassavola

Today my teacher came to school with a whole lot of plants. When she opened the trunk of her car I could tell that the plants were very expensive and special. I was write about the expensive part but I do not know if they are special. I still think that they are.

When we got to our garden area I started to take out the plants and one plant stood out. It was called Brassavola Yellow Bird. It had a wonderful looking yellow flower. at the bottom of the Brassavola there was a red flower. It turns out that the Brassavola also made that flower too when the flower first opens. The plant was just amazing overall.                                                                                           

This is a picture of one of the flowers from the Brassavola.

This is a picture of the whole Brassavola Yellow Bird.

A New Garden Area

About a week ago Horticulture Club worked on a new garden. It took a lot of work create it.
By Monday we were all finished with most of it. It looks fantastic and people are commenting on it!

Here is a picture of the garden.

                                                            Garden

Thank You, Modernfloristry

Dial Jenson and Sean McGowan from Modernfloristry,  on behalf of the Garden Department and the HORTICULTURE CLUB we thank you so much for making a donation to our school. We are students from the school and we use this blog to write about our interests. As you can see we have a Horticulture club that meets on Mondays after school. The Students in the garden clubs are from 4-10 years old and are very interested in growing plants. In the garden department we work before school to take care of the garden areas we started last year. Most of our plants are donated by our teacher and her friends.
We are happy that your business is located so close to our school and one of your employees is connected to the school. She brings us the plants that you have donated to us and we are very happy to get them. The plants that you have donated to us are in our garden area. The plants have changed the way the area looks, they form a nice border. We love that they are so big and cover up empty spaces. We have used the plants to make an empty wall a little bit more beautiful. We put the plants in some nice, big pots that were also donated.

The plants make our garden a big deal! People are giving us new compliments about how much nicer the garden area looks.

Whenever we walk by the plants,  it feels like we are in a proper garden. I am sure that other students at our school feel the same way. You should know that we really appreciate your donation, so THANK YOU!

Plants against the big wall.

The plants by the poles. 

The plants by the wall. 

My First Day At Horticulture Club

Today was my first day at garden club. After school, I stayed in my classroom, and we waited for other people to come. About 15 Classtopians came to the club. My little sister came, too. There were a few kids from another class that joined us. Once everyone was here, we started. First, we introduced ourselves to everyone, especially the new people we did not know. We said our names, and the reason we were here. After that, we got our journals. We were going to take notes in these.

We visited all of our gardens. We talked about what we needed to do. On Saturday, some volunteers cleaned up an area, or they mostly cleared up an area. There were a little bit of weeds left, but we would take care of those later. We started thinking about what we would put in that area. Maybe we would mount Orchids on the trees.

Then, we watered a garden. We wet the leaves (fronds) of a GIGANTIC fern. It was not extremely big, but it was the most biggest fern I have ever seen! This is a gift from our friend "The".

While  we were in a garden, my mom came to pick me up. I left at about 3:45, so there was still time left, but that was fine. I wonder what will happen next week at the club.

This is my journal

Hard work

Today was Saturday and today I was going to do something at my school.   We said we were going to make a new garden so when I was done preaching, I was close to the school. I thought that I should walk in and I saw Ms. H and Ms. J and a friend, Ms. P.  They had already started so then I said, "Hello". They were surprised that I came. Ms. H said "Is that you Christopher" and I said, "Yes". So then I started to pull  my sleeves up so that I could start to work. Some teachers were there not to help but to clean in the kindergarten, garden area and to do something in their classrooms. So then Ms. B., our principal came to check, she said she will be helping us. When I came some crates were full so I went to go empty them with MS. P.  It was easy but when we came back there was heavy trash bags so then we went to throw them out, they were  heavy like 10 pounds. But atlas we were done so then we went back.

I pulled out the weeds while Ms. H cut them because they were hard to take out and the bad thing was it was 90 degrees hot. What a hot day!  When we were almost done we saw some roots so Ms. H came and got this tool that was metal and had four swirl sharp lines.  It took out the roots it was awesome. So then we took all the roots. Then my teacher finally came to help. Ms. B. was so funny she didn't want to talk to her  because the work was so hard and she was tired. We all laughed.

We continued on but the sun made it hard to work in one part. We thought if we watered it so that it wouldn't be so dry. Ms. H. watered so then we saw lots of insects  come out like Black Beatles, 2 roaches, and some spiders. Then my mom came so then I had to go. But this day was a sweaty, hard working, and hot.

 Ahhh, what a mess!

This is filling the trash bag.

This is Ms. H. cutting the weeds.

When we were almost done.

Good News, Good News

Our teacher is going to start a Horticulture club, after school. In horticulture club, we will garden.  Of course, I will join. I am really interested, and most Classtopians are interested, too. Five kids from another class will join us, and we plan to include a lot more people! Our teacher said that our family members can join, too. I will bring my little sister, who is in third grade. I hope that my little sister will get very interested in plants, and take over when I leave.

In the club, we will make our school more beautiful. We will make new gardens, and so much more. We will learn all about different types of plants, how to propagate from seeds, stems, and leaves. We will learn how to hybridize, and how to grow epiphytes on trees. We will also be able to take plants home. And the most important thing is that at the end of the year, we will have a PLANT SHOW.  Everyone will have their own plant that they are interested in, and will focus on that plant.

The very, very, good news is that our principal, MS.B, just gave us her approval for the horticulture club, while we were out doing PE! Our teacher gave her the flyers earlier this week, and we have been waiting for her approval. Ms. B put her initials, and that means we can start our club on Monday.

I am really excited, and I know that I will come to every meeting.

Our Teacher's Show And Tell

This morning, our teacher came to school with a little box. We could see some plants, so we crowded around her. It turns out that  over the weekend, she had gone on a plant field trip. She had gone with The, Jennifer, Fernando, and Dave. They went to a nursery in Vista, California. The nursery was called the SVO. The owner is Fred Clarke. Fred hybridizes Orchids.

The Orchid has beautiful flowers! It is purple and yellow. It has a lot of spots, too. This cross made by Fred Clarke is Ctsm. Frilly 'SVO II' Am/AOS x Clo. Upper Echelon 'SVO Sun Blast'


Our teacher told us a little trick that Fred told her. The first rain is the best, because then, the plants can get all the nutrients from the trees. I learned that Orchids have been around for millions of years! I learned that before, Orchids used to be on the ground, but then they moved to the trees. I think that this is very cool!

My favorite plant is the Orchid. I really like the Orchid's flower.

This is the link for Fred Clarke's nursery website. https://www.sunsetvalleyorchids.com/

This is a close up of the Orchid's flower. 

This the Orchid plant. 

How My Plants are Doing now

Last school year on Friday, May 6, 2016 our teacher gave us plants to give our moms. My mom loved them. When they got bigger I had to put them in a bigger place. Sadly one of the plants died. My mom is very good in crafts and instead of buying pot she got a gallon jug with no water. Then she cut it in half, we kept one of the halves then we filled it with soil. Then we put the plant in it. We also had a aloe so we put the aloe in with the mother's day plant. This is how it looks like now.

We also had another mother's day plant it looks like this:

Adventitious Growing

This morning our teacher brought in a big leaf. The class was curious to know what plant the leaf was from. She told us that it was a Begonia lotusland. She asked us if we were interested in starting new plants from pieces of the leaf. We all responded "yes". She helped Daniela and Leslie to cut the leaf in smaller pieces.

Daniela and Leslie combined sphagnum moss, perlite, potting mix. First, they got the begonia leaf  pieces and  planted the leaf pieces in plastic bowls.  Before they put the pieces in they sprayed the mix with water and made spaces in the medium to put the leaves in. Finally, they put the lid on the bowl. The leaves will be placed in a shady place in the garden and hopefully grow.

 Now we will wait to see how long it will take for the new plants to start growing.

We did a survey to see how long it will take and most people said it will take between 1 to 2 months.
When they start to grow the garden department will auction some off and keep some for the school garden.

Written by Natalia and Laila
Pictures by Natalia

The center piece of the leaf.

Begonia lotusland

   

This is Leslie making spaces and putting the pieces in the medium.

Plants Of The San Juan Capistrano Mission

    On Wednesday, Classtopians went to a field trip to a mission. The mission is called The San Juan Capistrano.You can go to their website at https://www.missionsjc.com/. And it was good timing to go to that mission as a field trip because classtopians have been learning about Native Americans. Native Americans were the people who live and worked at the Mission. The Missions are a part of the history of California and it was fun to visit one of the 21 California Missions. Maybe one day I will get to see all of them. 

My trip I focused on the plants of the Mission. I did not expect to see so many plants. It must have been garden day because there were people touring the plants and lots of people taking care of them. They were taking out a dead Agave and we tried to get on of the pups but they are not allowed to give plants away.

We did our own garden tour with our teacher.

Begonia

Agave

Calla lilly

Succulents collection

Aeonium sunburst

Water lilly

Epiphyllum In Bloom

                                     

Our beautiful Epi

                    In our garden our Epiphyllum "orange bouquet" flowered. It was a gift to our class from one of our teacher's friends, Yvette. She gave us a lot of plants at the beginning of the 4th grade. It is fun to see the plants she gave us flower. The class is happy that the Epiphyllum burst into flower. It is a pearly red/orange flower. The stamen is white. It was perked up and looked like it was waiting for us to come to school.   

Epiphyte Season

We are happy to show off our Tillandsia aeranthos that we put on the tree back in October. It is now flowering.  We have five of them in bloom. We noticed that one of the plants have a lighter color than the others.

Tillandsia Aeranthos   pic by Jalaysia

This little Bromeliad quesnelia started to open up this morning. It is a great time to be an Epiphyte in the garden after all the rain, watering, and care that we have been giving our plants.

Bromeliad Quesnelia      Pic by Jalaysia

Morning Surprise

When we got to our garden this MORNING, this was our SURPRISE. 

This was the beautiful flower that we just got to put in our Epiphyte Garden. It was finally opened. It was given to us by our friend, The. It is called an Epiphyllum. When we first look at it is seems to be only hot pink but, a closer look shows many other colors. The colors of  petals are vibrant pink and striped with orange. The stamens and Stigma are white. The Style and Filaments are pink. The Anthers are yellow which makes it interesting to look at. 

We plan to propagate, grow from cutting, the plant so that we can have a lot of it. Maybe each of us can get a piece.

Today we get to enjoy looking at the flower because it does not last for a long time.

A Trip To The Arboretum

On March 29, Classtopians  went on a field trip to the County Arboretum. This is a place with many plants, lizards and peacocks. Classtopians were divided into three groups so that we can have three different experiences. We saw many plants and artifacts from the past.

The Arboretum has millions of plants to see and some to buy. We saw many plants that we have learned about in school like Clivias and Scadoxus. We also have these plants in our school gardens. The Arboretum is very excited to have their Scadoxus flower this year. We were told that it has not flowered before so they had a fence around it. The most unusual was the yellow Clivia. We do not have a yellow one but, our teacher has promised to gives us some seeds so that we can grow our own. Maybe she will give us enough so we can take some home to grow.

Scadoxus plant

It was a hot day and we walked around and through the bamboo trees and palm tree to the Train Depot. At the  Depot, we got a tour of the spot. First we sat in the waiting room, then we went in the kitchen and saw some very old kitchen tools. Then we went to an office and there was a telegraph. That was how they sent text messages in the old days. They also had an old phone. We were surprised when the docent showed us how to use it.  He used his cell phone to dial and when it rang Christopher was lucky to get the chance to answer the phone.

Before leaving we went to the gift shop to see what plants we could get to take home. Outside the gift shop were plants that we could buy. Almost all Classtopians brought money so they can buy a plant. Some people even borrowed money from our teacher to pay for plants.

A great time was had by all Classtopians. It was good to get away from school and enjoy what we love to do. And that is TO GARDEN.
Blog by Elizabeth, Natalia, Diana and Jalaysia
Photos are by Jalaysia

Wild plants by Daniela

One of the peacocks trying to attract us.

Outside the train depot

Old Phone

Kitchen at the train depot

Kitchen tools

The Power of Friends

This Blog is dedicated to the Anonymous Donor who kindly funded our project, We Need To Breathe. All of us in Classtopia  thank you for your generosity. Without your support this project could not have happened so quickly. Special thanks to Kylie's mom who ran around the city looking for borders and stepping stones for the garden. To Ms J., one of the office staff, who kindly shared her funds with us, we love your support. Our friend The, who donated and continues to donate plants as well as other materials to the nation, thanks for adding another dimension to the Classtopia experience.

The Process
We are very happy to announce that on February 9, 2017, we created on DonorsChoose.org, a project for Classtopia. The name of the project "We Need to Breathe" was initially a small project to get some much needed tools for working in the garden. The purpose of the project was to get Classtopians more involved in civic duty and responsibility to the community. Creating new garden spaces on the campus was a way to help make the campus more beautiful. We wanted to revitalize some overlooked areas by creating small garden vignettes. This would change the space in very dramatic ways: students and staff would stop to look at the plants and flowers and connect with each other and the obvious increase in biodiversity on the campus would lend itself to more students having first hand experiences with plants and animal life cycles. The goal is to have outdoor learning spaces for people of all ages.

Since October, we have been working hard on campus beautification projects.  The first garden, now completed and thriving, has given us the confidence to want to do more to make the campus a more inviting place.

We noticed that the garden bed behind the school's auditorium was in dire need of care.  There is evidence that a long time ago there was intentional planting. Toady, what remains is a grouping of persistent Yucca plants that continue to grow despite neglect.

First view of the area.

After informing the principal of the plan to take over the new area, Classtopians went into full attack mode and decided to clear the area of weeds, pull dead Yucca leaves, and prune unsightly branches  After an hour of work and thirty pair of helping hands the space looked much better. We collaborated on the ideal plants for the new space and settled on a garden that would have to be a drought tolerant because of the amount of sun it received daily. Classtopians monitored the area for several days to make sure that the choices of plants would be the right. The space was sunny enough for succulents and to incorporate a butterfly garden.

Plants needed to be cleaned 

Students attacking the Yucca plants.

Team work.

Yucca plants and removed Eucalyptus tree stump.

Planter bed after initial clearing of weeds.

We needed help to get the project on the way. Kylie's uncle had some information about DonorsChoose and passed it on to one of our new Coordinators, Ms. C. She helped a lot with the process and before long our project was submitted and approved. We waited to see if our project would get the funding we needed. While waiting for the funds we continued to make plans for the new area.

On February 15, we reached out to a long time friend about our project and what we were doing in Classtopia. Within minutes of the e-mail our project was completely funded. The project list included; a shovel for digging holes, a greenhouse to begin germination of seeds from the garden and for the garden areas around the campus, a 175ft. hose to reach the planting beds far away from the spigots, four terrariums to raise delicate seedlings and cuttings, and a pruner to clip and maintain plants.

Materials for project began arriving on February 21, and were quickly put to the test. The shovel was the first item to be used. The new area needed to be aerated for the plant roots to expand and for the impending rain. Everyone took part in the activities.

We also received a small grant from Ms. J. to buy plants. She works at our school and believed in our project. With the money we were able to buy plants at mickeyhargitayplants. Mickey was generous enough to donate some additional plants to us and also challenge us to take care of some neglected nursery plants. We are happy to say that all the plants are doing well.

Classtopians at work.

"Many hands make light work."

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First plants in the new bed. Plants stayed in pots a few days to acclimatize to the area. 

• 

   Borders for the bed. Donated by Kylie's mom.

We continue to work hard in Classtopia to beautify every little bit on neglected space on our campus. We recognize that we need friends just as much as we need to breathe. It is through the generous contributions of our friends that we are making a difference to our school community.

Young Botanists At Work

Today in Classtopia, the big lesson, for those of us we completed our homework, was to continue working as future botanist. We used our pre prepared bottles to sow our fern spores. We got our spores from our friend, The. He got them from Barbara Joe Hoshizaki. The also gave us the book Fern Grower’s Manual. The book has all kinds of information about fern and how to grow them correctly.

We had so many to choose from. Each person decided which spores they wanted to grow. Some of them we all decided to sow, because we wanted to see whose plants would be the first to start growing.

The spores were in tiny little bags that we received. First thing we did was to label the bottles with the name of the spore. We used q-tips to put the spores in the bottles. After we were finished we put them in ziploc plastic bags. They are now ready to begin the process of growing. We need to be patient because it might take a while for them to grow.

After we finished with the fern spores, we worked together to build one of the four terrariums we got. We also started to build a Raised Garden Bed that we are going to put in the new garden area to grow some vegetables or just some plants. We were going to start the greenhouse but it turned out that the greenhouse was pretty big and it had too many parts for building in the back of the classroom, so we will do that one later, and outside.

Overall it was a fun day at school for those of us who participated. We learned a lot about a different kind of plant- ferns. We also learned that coming to school prepared means that we get to do more interesting activities.

Below you can see the different types of fern spores that we used and how they look when we are done.

These are the spores we used.

These are the bottles we put the fern spores in.

With the tweezers, we carefully take out the leaf trash.  

These are the spores in their new temporary home.

This is the terrarium we were building

This is the finished terrarium.

If you live in the area and would like to learn more about ferns then please consider attending a meeting of the The Los Angeles International Fern Society.