Category Plants & Animals

Taking Care of Forests

Forests, just like gardens, need care if they are to stay strong and healthy. People who take care of forests are called foresters. There are different kinds of foresters. Some foresters work for a government. They take care of national parks and forests so that people will have places for camping, sightseeing, hunting, and fishing.

Other foresters work in woods that are owned by timber and paper companies. They raise and care for the trees that are used to make houses, furniture, and paper.

All foresters protect trees from insects, animals, fires, and diseases. They make sure that unhealthy trees are replaced with young, healthy ones, and that the young trees grow up to be big, healthy trees. Foresters also plant new trees to replace trees that have been cut down.

Picture Credit : Google

Names of Flowers

Did you ever wonder how some wild flowers got their names?

The daisy looks a little bit like an eye. And, like an eye, it opens up at the start of each day. So, long ago in England, people named it “day’s eye”. In time, the name became daisy.

The buttercup got its name because it looks like a tiny cup made of yellow butter. Long ago, people believed that butter was yellow because cows ate buttercups. But that’s not true. Butter does get its colour from what cows eat, but cows don’t eat buttercups.

Milkweed gets its name from the white juice that oozes from the stems when the plant is cut. The juice looks like milk. When the juice dries in the sun, it covers the cut like a rubbery bandage.

For years, people in different parts of the world have eaten the young, spring leaves of dandelions. They thought the jagged edges of the leaf looked like a row of teeth. So, long ago, the people of France gave the plant the name dent de lion, which means “lion’s tooth”. To the people of England, dent de lion sounded like dandelion, and that’s what they called the plant!

One plant that many cats love is called catmint! A cat that finds a clump of catmint may roll happily around among the leaves. Many cat owners give their pets balls or toys stuffed with dried catmint leaves.

Some people like catmint too, but not usually to roll around in. They drink it. They make catmint tea by putting dried catmint leaves into boiling water and adding a little honey.

World of Gardens

In every part of the world, people have a favourite kind of garden. In a formal garden, flowers are arranged in squares, circles, or fancy shapes. Bushes are often trimmed to points, squares, or balls. Garden paths are long and straight. In Japan, many gardens have little bridges in them. In India, gardens often have ponds filled with water lilies. Gardens in Hawaii may have many ferns. Gardeners in other parts of the world often copy these favourite gardens.

Picture Credit : Google

A Scent Garden

One of the most wonderful things about plants is the way some of them smell. Lovely scents come from their flowers or their leaves.

The rose is a sweet-smelling favourite around the world. The sweet pea is a fragrant climbing plant. The tiny, white, bell-shaped lily of the valley has a strong perfume. Many people think that heliotrope smells like vanilla, apple, or cherry pie. One kind of cosmos smells like chocolate.

Fragrant flowering shrubs include the winter jasmine and the gardenia. The leaves of the myrtle plant have a spicy smell when crushed. Daphne and lilacs are also favorites.

A Rock Garden

If your garden has a sunny place that slopes a little, like a small hill, you can make a rock garden. It should look like a tiny bit of mountainside, where small, bright flowers grow among the rocks.

First, bring rocks to the slope. Scoop out shallow holes for them. Put the biggest rocks at the bottom. Put the smaller stones higher up on the slope. Place some of them close together and some further apart. At least half of each rock should be buried in the soil.

Finally, plant small ferns and flowering plants between the rocks. Use plants that won’t grow more than 30 centimetres high.

Picture Credit : Google

A Butterfly Garden

It’s hard to imagine anything prettier than the flashing colours of butterfly wings in a sunny garden. You can grow a garden to attract butterflies by simply choosing the right plants.

Butterflies like to sip nectar, so colourful flowers that make a lot of sweet nectar attract them. Queen Anne’s lace attracts butterflies called black swallowtails. The perfume of sweet William, lavender, and heliotrope also will attract butterflies to your garden. Butterfly weed, sunflowers, and peonies are other butterfly favorites.

Butterflies also will come to a garden to lay their eggs on plants that their caterpillars like to eat. Milkweed is one of these plants. The caterpillar of the monarch butterfly eats milkweed. The caterpillar of the black swallowtail butterfly eats parsley. Several types of caterpillars feed on nettles and clover.

To welcome butterflies, you can put out large flat rocks for them to “sunbathe” on. You might also provide puddles of water where they can drink.