The Sunflower Project: How do plants grow?

Every now and then you stumble across something really lovely. Last week a friend of mine invited us to a potting class for children at a local plant nursery. It was a gloriously warm day, and as the kids sat outside with spade in hand, surrounded by soil, I smiled at how happy they were busy with their potting work.

For just $5 Jack (4yrs) and Sarah (23 months) were guided gently to pot their own plant whilst given freedom to shovel and explore to their hearts’ content. It was really lovely.

And after the flowers were potted and a little morning tea was had, we took our plants home with us.

Jack and Sarah have been taking good care of their plants; watering them and making sure they get enough sunlight. We’ve been talking about how plants grow, how they start from a tiny seed.

We’ve never grown sunflowers before. I don’t know how well they will grow, but that is part of the learning process, isn’t it? How do plants grow? Will these little seeds of ours grow in the cotton wool? How often will we have to water them? How long will they take to sprout?

My hope is that they will sprout, that Jack and Sarah will see them sprout and grow into seedlings. And then with our little seedlings, we will carefully pot them into some soil, much like they did at the nursery.

It will be a long project, caring for these little seeds, observing their progress, keeping track of changes in a little blank notebook, but how fascinating to watch, from a tiny seed, a huge sunflower grow.

So with pipettes in hand, and with the same concentration they gave to potting their plants, Jack and Sarah wrapped each seed in wet cotton wool.

We’ve checked on them already, nope they haven’t sprouted yet. Jack will undoubtedly check again tomorrow.

I really hope these little seeds grow.