The Fortune Cookie

Yesterday it was spring.  The air was warm and the crocuses were blooming.  Unfortunately, I didn't know that they were crocuses... and I didn't know the name of the ornamental grass, or even the half in bloom pussy willow.  As I walked with David Fernandez around Cayuga Landscape, he would point excitingly to a plant starting to bud and ask me if I knew its name.  Sadly, I knew none of their names.  Yes, I felt totally out of my league.  Fortunately, David and the crew at Cayuga Landscaping are some of the nicest, most enthusiastic bunch of people.  They have no problem explaining even the simplest of flowers to me...Actually, I think they kind of like it.  Nevertheless, my new mission for this week is to post a picture of a plant EVERY DAY. And list its name.  And hopefully stamp that information permanently in my brain.  Then, I can always come back into my journal and review the names I forget.  So, here you go...

Crocuses.  These crocuses are not fully opened, but I liked this picture because it shows how many different colors crocuses come in.  Crocuses are perennial flowering plants native to the coastal regions of Europe. There are seven different species of crocuses.

There we go! One flower now in my knowledge forever.  Anyways, yesterday I had my internship at Cayuga Landscaping.  At first, I ended up in the office room, stapling and making copies.  I was secretly thinking to myself...uh oh, this is going to be a real internship where I do only the mindless work isn't it?  But, I also thought how grateful I was that Cayuga Landscape was letting me just pop by every Wednesday and follow them around.  Luckily, I only made a few copies and found a typo in their newsletter before David escorted me out of the office. He handed me off to Melissa who was 'planting' bare root bulbs.  I learned a lot from Melissa.  Bare root bulbs are sold in the very early spring, and they are kept in gravel so their roots do not settle into place.  Then when a costumer wants a certain variety, it is very easy to just pluck the bare root right out of the gravel.  It is very important to keep bare roots very moist, so their exposed roots do not get brittle.  The last thing I did before leaving, was made label cards for all of the bare roots and placed the labels next to the appropriate bulbs.  Pretty productive day.

What the weird thing was though...I met my mom and sister for Chinese food after my internship.  We talked and ate and at the end of the meal, of course we got some fortune cookies.  And guess what mine said?
            "Your love of gardening will take on a new meaning in you life."

That is exactly what it said. GO FIGURE! How weird, right?  We will see...