Monday, February 18, 2008

Little Gardens

Since I can't have a garden outside, I'll have to have my little spots of color where I can find them. For example, the pot of miniature daffodils I bought at the grocery store.

Unfortunately, I discovered that the little daffodils had little bugs on them, so the pot went outside. Not sure where to go from here. I think it's too cold to keep the pot outside permanently, as yet.

Also, here are some rock gardens, one of the girls' art projects from last week. They got the idea from a book that my sister gave them ages ago. The markers recommended by the book with which to color the rocks were $16 for a set of six, and I had to wait to get a sales associate to get them for me as they were locked on the wall to prevent theft. One reason why I don't do a lot of the projects in that book is that many of the projects seem to need items not readily available and perhaps on the expensive side, at least if you don't have a big art budget. I suppose the girls might have just used tempera paint, but I wasn't sure how well that would stay on, so I preferred to use the markers suggested in the book.


This book seems to have possibilities; the girls have already done some projects from it. It touches on some of the basics of art, such as value, texture and space, some of the lessons teach about famous artists, and the projects don't require a lot of expensive materials. All pluses for me!

5 comments:

Elephantschild said...

The daffodils will be ok down to about 33 degrees. They're pretty tough & cold hardy. If you bring it back inside after a few hours, it may be ok and the bugs will probably be dead, dead, dead. Or at least chilled enough that you can knock 'em off.

I had an amaryllis from the store that was full of little fruit flies.

YUCK.

Consecutive Odds said...

I'm sorry you can't have a garden! Have you tried African violets? They do best if you have a sunny window.

Unknown said...

Hey girl...I love Daffodils, but I think the reason is that the are the harbingers of Spring! I am teaching beginning drawing to the high school kids in my homeschool co-op and am thinking of offering private lessons next year. I love art, but teaching it to my kids is so hard. Why is that?

Barb the Evil Genius said...

Liz, I don't think I have a sunny enough window.

Miss Sniz, that's why I wanted to buy the daffodils, because they remind me of spring! I don't know about you teaching art to your kids, but I have a hard time teaching German to my daughters, and I majored in it in college!

Barbara Frank said...

You can also spray the plant with a mix of water and rubbing alcohol (8 parts water to 1 part alcohol) and the little critters should keel over.

We can't have a garden either...for the first time in well over 25 years. I'm going to get into container gardening (to prevent gardening withdrawal) :0