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mulberryknob

Kids in the Garden, 1&2

mulberryknob
15 years ago

I had two interesting experiences with kids in my garden lately. My daughter in Collinsville runs a daycare and this last spring I halped her plant a tiny garden--2 ft wide and 25 ft long in a narrow strip between the patio and back fence. The kids were all excited at first but then most lost interest--except for one 6 yr old little girl and her 8 yr old brother. They were so interested that my daughter brought them to see my garden one Sat afternoon recently. They were so excited they spent the first several minutes running around, asking "what's this?" while my 3 grandaughters, 6, 9 and 13, reveled in being the experts--having grown up with it.

They picked peaches and bluberries, cucs and squash, corn and tomatoes--enough of each to take home to Mom. Then they helped dig potatoes. What a revelation to learn that they grew underground.

But the best moment for me was when my daughter and I showed them how to feel the heat in the compost pile. The little boy looked at me so seriously and asked, "How do you turn it on? You know, to make it get so hot?"

I needed the memory of those heartwarming moments a few days later when a 7 year old little girl that I have babysat for intermittently since she was an infant pointed to virginia creeper on a tree in my yard a few days later and said, "Dorothy, that's poison oak. You should get rid of that." I have encountered confusion concerning the identity of virginia creeper in adults before so wasn't surprised that someone had misinformed the child. I told her the truth. That poison oak, like poison ivy, has only 3 leaflets, not 5 like virginia creeper and poison oak, unlike poison ivy and virginia creeper, is a shrub and not a vine. And I didn't give it another thought.

A few days later the child was at my house again and as I picked peaches she said to me, "Dorothy, my nana says that she is smarter than you so I should believe her and not you about that vine on your tree. She says it is too poison oak." (The child is being raised by her grandmother, a professional woman with a master's degree in her field.)

I was shocked by what I'd heard so I asked her to repeat what she'd said. She repeated it very slowly and deliberately. I didn't answer her then but when I was through picking peaches I walked her by the tree again, reached out and picked a handful of leaves and rubbed them along both my arms, explaining to her that I react very strongly to poison ivy so would never do that if it was poison oak, which is so closely related. Then I rubbed her arms with the leaves.

After we got in the house, I pulled down my ID book, Trees, Shrubs and Vines of Arkansas, showed her the colored photos and read her the entries for all three plants. And thought that should be the end of it.

The next time she was at my house, she said, "Dorothy, you need to show that book to my Nana because she still doesn't believe it." So that day when she came to pick up the child, I opened the book and showed her the same entries I had shown the child. She barely glanced at them, and said, "But I know there is some five-leaved vine out there that we are allergic to."

"I doubt if it's that one," I said. "When I lived in California I saw a lot of that planted as ornamentals on arbors over patios.

She didn't answer, just got up and left.

Later, I got to wondering if perhaps I was the one who was holding to a position based on insufficient knowledge and not her. I know that different people react differently to different plants. One of my daughters reacts to bell peppers, lips and eyes swelling up. My father gets stomach cramps from oregano and chamomile affects me the same way. I wonder if some people might react differently to contacting this plant--or perhaps some other five-leaved vining plant, a potentilla maybe. So before I judge this woman too harshly, I'm asking for feedback from people who would know. And btw the identity of the plant is not in question. The plant on my tree is parthenocissus quinquefolia. Has anyone out there ever developed a poison ivy-like rash from contacting this plant, or from any other vining plant with 5 leaves?

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