Green fingers at the ready! [Gardening Club] on Labyrinth Gardens

Cleo James

November 15, 2018 7:48 AM

Green fingers at the ready! [Gardening Club] by Cleo James

Cleo made her way through the gardens with Parker, followed by two floating boxes, and leaving a glittering green arrow every time they reached a junction. After a couple of planning sessions with Parker and some help with gathering resources from Professor Xavier, she had felt ready for the first (re)meeting of the gardening club. Well, she had a plan and she had plants to plant. She actually felt ready in terms of other people too. More than ready - she really hoped people would come. It would be nice to meet more keen gardeners and make some more friends. And she had told herself that she was ready too if no one came. That she could deal with the thought that no one wanted to be in a club she was running. That part was less true, if she was honest. She would be hurt. But she had Parker and Professor Xavier, and now Jasmine was her friend too, so she would be ok. And she wouldn't know unless she tried.

She hadn't been able to face standing on the school steps and waiting for people who might never come. Thus, in the posters announcing the gardening club, she had advised anyone who was interested to come to gardens on Sunday and follow the green arrows. These led down from the front steps and to the area Professor Xavier had deemed appropriate for them to use. It was within a small walled courtyard, previously used as a herbology lecture area and general… plant place before the greenhouses had been finished, and consisted of four need square beds with plenty of space between them and a bench at the end of each one. It was not neglected, that would have been a very unfair accusation to level at Sonora's prairie elves, who kept everything well tended and tidy. They had continued to do a thorough job of this throughout Cleo's absent phase last year, and she had nowhere the amount of weeding that one would normally suffer for neglecting such a project.

"It's looking very nice out here," she was sure to note, looking towards the elf who had followed her and Parker outside and was occupying themself with pulling weeds out of the walls.

The garden was planted very simply with low maintenance plants, which of course was very sensible when it was being tended by the busy elves. But that was what Cleo planned to shake up. She had thought long and hard about what to plant. She had considered going for a theme, like the school houses, seeing as there were four beds, but that seemed divisive, and she wanted gardening to be a nice thing that brought them all together. Plus it might mean choosing flowers over vegetables and, whilst Cleo knew that flowers would be more popular, she was mostly a vegetable gardener and didn't want to give those up. Plus there weren’t many brown flowers for Pecari, and it would have meant they couldn't plant pinks, purples or oranges, which would have been a shame.

Her goal for today was to get some things down that would yield quick results. Gardening had been a good hobby for her in terms of teaching patience, but she needed the garden here to catch people’s interest first. She wanted to turn it into a proper, exciting garden - one that was a nice place for people to sit and look at it, but also something that was useful. She had chosen some quick growing spring flowers and vegetables. She planned to plant the flowers at intervals with the elves’ perennial shrubs, so that the bed would develop some nice little bursts of colour, whilst not losing the shrubs that made it look full. Those could be replaced with more interesting plants gradually over time. She had read some interesting books in the library about mixing flowers, vegetables and herbs, in order to make beds more appealing, and because there could be some beneficial effects - marigolds, for example, repelled whatever bug it was that fed on tomatoes. However, she had grown up growing vegetables plain and simple, and wasn’t sure she was up to creating a system that complex just yet. So, the vegetable patch was going to have to look a little bare for a while, as that just needed straight stripping out. Her first plans for it were radishes, snap peas and some lettuces, as they all grew relatively quickly and the lettuces and the tops of the radishes would give some much needed volume to the area.

Cleo set the boxes down with a wave of her wand. One contained tools loaned by the school, and the other some seeds and also seedlings so that not everything had to start from scratch. On top was settled Cleo’s portable wireless and her own gardening tools. She perched the little red radio on the side of one of the flower beds, clicking the dial on at a low volume. A steady low voice emanated from it. She had timed the gardening club to coincide with one of her and her Daddy’s favourite shows, The Sunday Morning Story - either a reading of a book, or a serialised radio play. It wasn’t always easy to follow whilst your mind was half on gardening but the voices were always steady and calm, good solid voices to work to. She pulled on her blue gardening gloves, decorated with little flowers, and unrolled the little bundle of tools with matching handles, ready to set to work.

“Ok…” she addressed Parker, “so, we need to uproot the existing plants carefully. The elves will be able to replant them elsewhere. Flowers or veggies first? Or take one bed each?” she asked. They could divide the work further if anyone else showed up, but for now she felt she had everything she needed.

OOC - involvement of Parker and Professor Xavier approved by their authors. The club would have been advertised on all house notice boards. Additionally, as noted, there are glowing green arrows in the garden, so someone curious might just follow them! Although Parker is already there, this post is open to anyone to reply to, though Cleo will give new people more guidance than she’s just given Parker (he was in on the planning).

Subthreads:

Thank goodness for this! by Evelyn Stones

13 Cleo James Green fingers at the ready! [Gardening Club] 389 Cleo James 1 5

Evelyn Stones

November 15, 2018 8:41 PM

Thank goodness for this! by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn extracted herself from everything Sunday morning, eager to make her way downstairs for the Gardening Club's meeting. She'd seen the signs and had a whole lot of feelings all at once. On one hand, it was one of the first and only clubs she actually thought might help her as it required little real magical ability and was a skill she could work with over the summers as well. She was happy to do that and enjoyed herbology tremendously anyway. It didn't hurt that Cleo James was running it.

Since hearing that Cleo was a veela, Evelyn had wanted to meet her more than anything. From one ostracized, terrified, out of place kiddo to the next, Evelyn had high hopes that she'd find a friend in the girl.

And plants make good friends too.

She entered the greenhouses and following the arrows with some sense of trepidation. What if Cleo was disappointed that a first year was here? What if Evelyn's on-again-off-again relationship with magic made her singe all the plants or something, effectively ruining any chance at being normal? She pushed the thoughts aside, determined to give this a shot.

"Hi," she said, surprised to find not only Cleo, but also another student that she didn't know, and an elf. She'd known to expect the elves but still thought it was kind of sweet. "And hello to you," she said, not sure what pronouns to think of the little creature in terms of. "My name is Evelyn," she added, realizing more people knew Cleo than Cleo probably knew herself.

22 Evelyn Stones Thank goodness for this! 1422 Evelyn Stones 0 5

Parker Fitzgerald

November 19, 2018 6:52 PM

Green from my head to my toes by Parker Fitzgerald

A soft whistling that came out of his mouth seemed odd at first since he didn't recognize it. It wasn't until they were away from the school that he realized it was a song his mother always hummed when she was at work in the garden. The simple melody brought a smile to his face as he walked down the path next to Cleo.

They had spent a few planning sessions together after returning from winter break and were now going out into the gardens to get back to the club the two of them had done alone back before...

The more Parker thought about it, the more surprised he was that nothing had ever happened before. Nothing had happened ever really. Part of him had wished something had in some way, as he wondered if he didn't elicit the feelings in Cleo that would cause her to do, whatever it was that she would do. But, he reasoned with himself, if something had happened, he might not be able to be out here on this lovely day whistling as they walked towards the space Professor Xavier had said they could use.

Parker looked over the space and smiled. He knew their plans were simple right now, but he could imagine a great many plants, some of which he probably didn't know anything about just yet, growing here, becoming something of a controlled jungle.

He nodded when Cleo mentioned how nice it looked. Maybe she too imagined a jungle, though he doubted it. Still, it was a nice spot of land and you can never beat being outside on the weekends instead of trapped inside, even if it was while playing Dungeons and Dragons. He knew that it was only a matter of time before someone else showed up, after getting his sister to promise that she'd be there.

Parker waved his wand causing a pair of gloves to fly out of the boxes that Cleo had just placed down.

"Oh right. Recycle Reduce Reuse," he responded to Cleo in a sing-songy voice not paying full attention to what he was saying as he put on his gloves. He realized a bit late that she might not recognize the TV jingle they played in muggle classrooms to kids to make sure they recycled their things.

"Let's do one of each, that way we can see what other people might like as well." Parker knew that his sister probably would want to plant flowers, but then again, he hadn't known she was also magical.

Parker turned towards the path at the sound of someone walking up expecting to see his sister. Instead, it was a different first year.

The small gesture of greeting the elf made Parker smile. He didn't know this girl, but she was the kind person for this club of misfits and outsiders.

"Hi, I'm Parker," he said sticking his gloved hand out, "Welcome to our piece of paradise."

41 Parker Fitzgerald Green from my head to my toes 1402 Parker Fitzgerald 0 5

Cleo

November 30, 2018 6:34 AM

It's going so well! by Cleo

The sun was shining. She had her best friend. Everything felt good in Cleo Land, and she couldn’t help but smiling. Parker decided they should each work a bed to get more things going at once and Cleo turned to get to work. And then, the icing on the cake, another person showed up! Someone had actually wanted to come and join her and Parker’s club!

“I’m Cleo,” she smiled at the new girl, Evelyn. She rather suspected Evelyn knew this. Cleo and Parker’s names had both been on the posters, for one thing. For another, the entire school had had Cleo’s existence and species status as a non-human pointed out to them in class. That kind of thing tended to get you noticed.

“We’re planning to work on these two beds today,” she indicated the two nearest, “One’s for flowers, one’s for vegetables. There’s a full plan in the notebook there,” she added, nodding to her and Parker’s gardening journal, “I mean, as much of a plan as we have. We’re interested to know if there’s anything you particularly want to add to the garden,” they had decided that it was important that the club had room to grow, so had left plenty of space for members to contribute ideas. “So you can have a look at that and see if there’s anything you want to help with, or really want to add, or you can just join one of us and follow along. Our first task is going to be to carefully take out some of the existing plants, keeping their roots in tact so they can be replanted elsewhere,” she added. Hopefully that was a straightforward enough task given that they all took herbology, though Evelyn could just follow her or Parker if she wasn’t confident. “Have you done much gardening? Not that it’s important,” Cleo added quickly, she wanted the club to be a place where everyone felt welcome and could learn. She just hoped she’d be good at providing that… “Just… so we know.”

13 Cleo It's going so well! 389 Cleo 0 5

Lyssa Fitzgerald

December 05, 2018 9:07 AM

I'm late, I'm late... white rabbit has nothing on me by Lyssa Fitzgerald

Lyssa was running through the corridors. She'd been working on homework for the morning and had tried to figure out how to set an alarm clock. She'd promised Parker that she'd go to the gardening club and now she was late.

He'd mentioned that Cleo had come back from vacation wanting to start up the club and Lyssa had clapped excitedly. She loved gardening and had missed working in the dirt. She had missed the hard work and patience it took to grow something. She also loved the idea of finally meeting this girl that Parker talked about a lot, but Lyssa had never been able to have a one on one conversation with.

But, she had been busy stuck in her potions book and not been paying attention. When she looked up at her clock she let out a yelp which probably frightened anyone who was nearby. She quickly changed into her torn jeans and an old t-shirt and sweatshirt that could get dirty. So how she was running down the stairs trying to find the green arrows she'd seen were going to be on the ground pointing people to the correct meeting place.

As she quickly walked through the Labyrinth she looked around and realized why Parker was out here more, it was quite beautiful, and Lyssa had not taken full use of them. That was all about to change though. The sun was shinning and it was a beautiful day to be outside.

She turned the corner and almost ran headlong into another first year who was already there standing in front of Cleo. Up close Cleo was beautiful and looked so calm and happy. It made Lyssa happy in turn and excited to be there, finally.

Lyssa had come in at the end of the speech, and caught something about replanting. Catching her breath Lyssa pulled her curly hair back into a pony tail so as to not have it fall in her face as she was around on the grounds.

"So sorry for being late," she said looking at Parker, "I got caught up in some reading."

Lyssa walked up to Cleo with her hand out stretched
"My name is Lyssa. Umm. Lyssa Fitzgerald." Lyssa didn't know how much Parker had told Cleo about her so it was only fair to do a full introduction.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I've been hearing things about you for a few years and am excited that I am finally meeting you. In the gardens no less!"

Turning towards the other first year Lyssa leaned in, "Hello. Sorry for interrupting, I just got a bit flustered being so late."

41 Lyssa Fitzgerald I'm late, I'm late... white rabbit has nothing on me 1421 Lyssa Fitzgerald 0 5

Evelyn Stones

December 05, 2018 7:10 PM

I'm glad you fell out of a hat! by Evelyn Stones

Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief, surprised to find so much tension in her chest. Cleo was beautiful and perfect and Parker was...well she had no idea but he seemed nice probably. And flowers were nice but what was she supposed to say? When Lyssa barreled around the corner and into the group, Evelyn felt like she was finally a little less outnumbered.

"I'm glad you made it!" Evelyn said, smiling at her classmate. "What were you reading? I've been spending as much time as I can in the library," she added, hoping to make it clear that she was genuinely interested.

She felt so much more confident that she actually managed a smile up at Cleo and Parker, too. It made sense to her then that Lyssa and Parker were related. She was pretty sure she'd heard they had the same last name and Cleo's comment about having heard about Lyssa made it even more clear. Like a candle, the hope in her chest blew out. She was alone still, because even the other first years had people in upper grades they knew and could work with. If she was really lucky, maybe she'd be able to get in with them though. Lyssa seemed nice enough and Evelyn had been able to talk with Tatiana just fine, so it shouldn't be impossible.

"Thanks for planning this," she said to Cleo. "I'm excited to get to know everyone better."

22 Evelyn Stones I'm glad you fell out of a hat! 1422 Evelyn Stones 0 5

Parker Fitzgerald

December 06, 2018 10:07 AM

Fell out of a hat? Never heard that before. by Parker Fitzgerald

Air suddenly rushed out of Parker. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath, but he had been. He was glad when Evelyn showed up, even though she was far more... focused on Cleo, but he was even more excited when Lyssa showed up.

He'd told her that it was happening, and he knew that she would like the club even if he wasn't a part of it. Still, it made him happy that he could bring his sister into something he was into.

Then she opened her mouth and talked to Cleo. Parker could feel the color rise in his cheeks and he smiled softly, but worked to contain a "OH COME ON." from coming out.

Luckily Evelyn spoke up again and gave Parker a way out.

"It's nice to meet you too Evelyn. I for one am excited you joined us here with the plants."

Parker wondered what he would have thought if an older student had talked to him as much at any club and thought of his first quidditch season. Or if he had walked into a situation like Evelyn had, where everyone seemed to know each other. He knew he'd want to feel welcomed and so that's what he aimed to do. Parker also noted that Evelyn had not actually answered Cleo's question.

"As Cleo said, we're going to start with pulling the plants in the planters out safely." Parker motioned behind them where the planters sat. He could see another elf standing off to the side. Maybe more elves had been asked to come incase there was a crowd to protect Cleo. It made Parker a little sad that it was necessary, but he guessed it was for the best.

"There are four of us now, so we could each take a planter, but it might be more fun for everyone to get to know each other. So we can either split into groups of two or all four of us can work on a planter box together and then move on to another one. What do you all think?"

41 Parker Fitzgerald Fell out of a hat? Never heard that before. 1402 Parker Fitzgerald 0 5

Cleo

December 07, 2018 7:37 AM

Are you outta your tree? by Cleo

“Hi. Nice to meet you too,” Cleo smiled at Lyssa, trying not to be too embarrassed by the thought of being talked of. She was sure Parker would only say nice things about her, and the same was true the other way round - Parker had mentioned his sister plenty to her, “I’ve heard a lot about you too. We’ll have to get together sometime, just the two of us, and talk about him,” she teased, throwing an affectionate smile at Parker.

“Oh, that’s ok. I’m glad people came,” she added, turning her attention to Evelyn when she thanked her for putting the event together. “And it’s not just me… Parker’s co-president. He’s been doing a lot too,” she added, wanting to make sure she didn’t take over too much. Parker was making suggestions though, which definitely helped.

“Well… I’m going to start in the vegetable bed,” Cleo nodded to the one she had designated for that purpose, “I don’t mind who comes with me, or whether everyone finds their own area. Whatever people would like to do,” she shrugged. She wondered briefly whether this was sufficiently leaderly. Did people expect more of a plan, more direction? But it wasn’t class and she didn’t want to behave like a teacher. The session was supposed to be fun for everyone, and she couldn’t dictate what that looked like for different people. It was also meant to be productive for the garden but if they were all keen and doing something they felt like doing, hopefully that would happen naturally.

13 Cleo Are you outta your tree? 389 Cleo 0 5

Evelyn Stones

December 17, 2018 5:13 PM

Fell out of a hat like a magic rabbit! by Evelyn Stones

"Thank you both then," Evelyn said, smiling at Parker. She was feeling much less shy as they moved beyond just introductions, and Evelyn relaxed into the experience. Sonora was a special place.

The thought of working on the vegetable bed with Cleo sounded nice. And not nice. Besides, it made her think of Julius, who would probably appreciate the practical nature of such work. Evelyn enjoyed spending time with Julius, but she was trying to branch out more.

"I'm happy to do whatever," Evelyn said happily, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm not sure what you have going on or what the need is?" She was surprised to find herself hoping there was a medicinal plant bed someplace. Helping prepare ingredients for healers sounded like a her kind of magic. It was the first time she'd experienced any sort of long term ambition, and she put the thought away for consideration another time.

She looked around to see if she could spot any such thing, but wasn't sure what it would look like anyway. She thought of raising her question verbally, but wasn't sure she was ready to commit to such an interest just yet. Deciding she would maybe ask some of the professors for their thoughts, she concluded with something else. "What have you planned so far?"

22 Evelyn Stones Fell out of a hat like a magic rabbit! 1422 Evelyn Stones 0 5