Rose Seeds

 Every year for the last 7 or more years I've gone around our apartment complex, cutting the rose hips this time of year. They don't regularly cut the roses during the year so this time of year the roses are all gone and the rose hips have turned orange. That means that they are full of seeds. I wasn't going to collect them this year because we are moving soon, but I thought the seeds might make great going away gifts for a few close friends who like to garden. 

These are some of the rose hips cut and some of the seeds I collected. It's a bit of work getting the seeds out. They need to "sleep" for the winter before they can sprout so I normally put them in a ziplock bag with a little wet dirt and put them in the fridge. Around January they start sprouting in the bag and then February or so I can transplant the seedlings to pots to grow. I love watching the seeds sprout. It's like magic! 

Something else we noticed in the wall in our backyard are some little cocoons from an unknown insect. One of them was covered over with more dirt and the other wasn't. You can see the spots where they came out of the cocoons. 

Rose Seeds

 For the last 6 years now (or maybe 7?) I've had a tradition of collecting rose seeds in the fall. My kids have seen me do this and help me find rose seeds. They are in the rose hips. Where we live, the roses aren't usually cut back regularly- just at the end of the year. As the roses die, the rose hips eventually turn orange (around this time of year in the fall). That's when the seeds inside of them are ready. We pick off or cut off the rose hips, cut them open to get the seeds out. air them out to dry (usually for a day or two) and then put them in a ziplock bag with some dirt (and a bit of water). I label them with the date I picked them and then put it in the fridge to "winter." Around January of February they might start to get roots- that's when I plant them in a pot of soil in the house and then later on transplant them outside (usually in the summer or late spring). Over the years I've been doing this, I've got rose plants to grow and they've even grown small, cute, baby roses (about the size of my thumb), but the plant seems to die in the summer heat. I have to find a way somehow to try and get them to survive. It's a good challenge for my gardening skills!

This is one of the tiny roses that I got in 2016. 

Tulips and Birds

Today we went on a picnic to the botanical gardens to see the tulips with some other homeschool families. The kids had a blast! 

Also, I recently finished a book called "Western Birds of America" for kids. It introduces 25 birds from California, Oregon, and Washington State by telling a story about a girl that starts learning the names of the birds around her. 

Kublai Khan's Gardener

 I just finished a book about a gardener from the Yuan Dynasty. Here's the description on the back of the book:

Kublai Khan is one of history’s most famous kings. He had a huge palace built in Beijing, built the city walls, had a forest of trees on one of the hills, and did lots of other building projects. Sadly, the majority of his building projects aren’t around today. This story is about the head gardener who was in charge of the forest of trees on one of the hills. Kublai Khan had trees from all over brought over and this man had to make sure that they all did well. It was a hard job and this gardener had to travel sometimes to pick up new trees. By reading this book, you’ll not only see how life was like in China during this time period, but also learn a little about a variety of trees.