Ay up, pals! It's time for me, Hanley Bear, to introduce a Garden Bears' World episode, and this one is about science and science-fiction!
The science starts with this runner bean plant. Polar found some old bean seeds in an envelope, but couldn't remember when she had been given them. If she planted them now, to find out if they would grow, if they did they would be ready to go outdoors too early, but if she left it until May and they didn't grow, it would be too late to order new ones. So I suggested we did an experiment with one bean, which we put in a mug, on damp tissue paper, to see if it would start to grow. And it did! So I have potted it up, and want to try and grow very early beans, in the greenhouse.
My next science experiment is growing spider plants. We have brought one of the plants, which was making lots of baby ones, from the house into the greenhouse, and I have tucked all the baby spider plants into the tops of pots of compost. When they have rooted, I can snip them off from the parent and will have lots of new ones.
Then it was time to check on the plants Polar calls her 'Triffids'. These are strange, because they get some of the goodness they need to grow from eating insects, which they trap in long, tubular leaves, but they are not like the science-fiction triffids as they don't have stings, and don't eat humans or small bears.
Their proper name is Sarracenia and they are all descended from four or five plants Polar bought at the Tatton Park flower show about ten years ago.
Polar told me that they are herbaceous perennials, which die back during the winter, and can be made into extra plants by gently separating plants that have got crowded in their pot into two or three individual ones. She has got over fifty of them, just by doing that!
Some of the bigger plants are starting to flower. Their flowers are really amazing when they are fully open - they look quite alien! This year, I hope we can collect some seeds and grow new plants, which might be all sorts of new shapes and colours as they will be a 'cross' between different cultivars, although Polar says Sarracenias are tricky to germinate.
We're also propagating some baby heuchera plants, which are offshoots from a plant that was being attacked by nasty, squishy vine-weevil grubs, and in the terracotta-coloured pot is a piece of stem ginger that I planted, that I am hoping will grow into a ginger plant.
Polar was just about to start potting up some baby shrubs - with my help - when this big millipede ran across the bench. It was almost as long as my arm! It made me jump, so I gave it a hard stare and it went to hide behind the pots.
That's all from me for now, folks! I'll make sure we get lots of pictures of the Sarracenia flowers to share with you, and me or the other bears will keep you up to date with our other projects. T'ra!
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