Our focus is garden flowers and we marked our table of contents for flowers we think we will study over the next few weeks. Last week we did pansies and this week we are learning about daffodils. We read the section in the Handbook of Nature Study and then headed outdoors to our garden "laboratory".
We had our 10-15 minutes outdoors today looking for daffodils or jonquils. We have several varieties blooming right now so it was perfect timing. Here are a few photos.
We read in the HNS about the parts of the daffodil so when we went outside we made sure to look closely to see each part. Here is the sheath.
Here is the seedcase when we opened it up with a knife.
Okay, so now we were wondering why you grow daffodils from a bulb and not from seeds. We went to the internet and found the answer.
Here is what I found on the internet: The seeds are ripe when they literally rattle in the seedpod or the pod is about to burst open on its own. They should be black then. Hybridizers grow daffodils from seed to try to produce new varieties. The problem with it is it takes a really long time to get a blooming size bulb from seed. Typical is maybe five years! Most people buy and plant bulbs because they like results (flowers) sooner than that.
Here is the bouquet I was given at the end of our study today. It is in our special daffodil vase that my middle son gave to me as a gift many years ago. I love it.
So that was our very enjoyable Outdoor Hour challenge for this week. We learned more about a flower we have grown in our garden for decades. I love nature study and so does my son.
Barb-Harmony Art Mom
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