Green Elephant Want List last updated 2/16/12 Part sun/shade plants that bloom early or late to provide year round color & foliage (evergreen, variegated, purple) at the camp where we live. My personal favorite color is bright rose pink and least favorite is orange. We have woodland & sun gardens. Will take cuttings or potted plants. We're looking for reusable gardening materials for our Nature Center at Camp Berachah in Auburn, WA where we have a petting zoo, edible gardens, & activities for school age children attending our before/after school & summer camp programs. Our recent storm damaged our cyclone fencing, so we're using the opportunity to rebuild & expand our program. Accepting donations. Detailed want list and/or tax receipt available upon request. We want to show kids where food comes from & have a little fun in the garden with tall tepees & plants with unique colors, shapes, & names. Reusable garden materials: stakes, cages, bamboo poles, egg cartons, milk jugs, tools Perennial vegetables: Air potato, Dioscorea bulbifera Asparagus pea, Lotus tetragonobolus Chinese artichoke, Stachys affinia Good King Henry, Chenopodium bonus-henricus (AKA fat hen, Lincoln asparagus) Sea kale, Crambe maritime (fresh seeds germinate best) Cover Crops: Annual winter types: Austrain or Magnus Field Peas Pisum arvense, Crimson Clover Trifolium incarnatum, Fava or bell beans, Vicia faba Vetch: Lana, V. dasycarpa or Common, V. sativa Small grains: cereal rye, winter wheat, spelt, or barley Non-legumes: mustard Brassica juncea, rape B.napus, Arugula, or corn salad Valerianella locusta Herbs: any culinary perennial or annual Perilla, purple (Shisho or Beefsteak plant) Annuals: bloodleaf, chicken gizzard, or beefsteak plant (Iresine herbstii) Purple Lady Calendula, pink Mirabilis jalapa Limelight, 4oclock Morning glory: red/rose/pinks or Japanese Nasturtium except 'Alaska' Nicotania, pinks esp. sensation mix or dwarf Avalon mix Nicotiana x sanderae Perilla, Fantasy Plectranthus argentatus, silver spurflower Polka-dot plant (Hypoestes phyllostachya; also listed as H. sanguinolenta) Splash Select Mix Poppy: purple, pink or doubles Snapdragon, any named Sunflower that doesn�t need staking Viola Hardy Perennials: Agastache esp A. scrophularifolia (purple giant hyssop) Aquilegia (columbine) any named variety Alstroemeria Angelica gigas Chelone lyonii (pink turtlehead) Coreopsis, esp pinks Cyclamen hederifolium Daylilies: any, but esp. spiders, pinks/purples, reblooming Delosperma cooperi (hardy ice plant) Dianthus (cheddar or maiden pinks) Dictamnus (gas plant) Doroconum (leopard's bane) Echinacea, any Epimedium Eupatorium (Joe pye weed) esp. E. dubium Little Joe or E. fortunei Pink Frost (Japanese JPW) E.greggii (Perennial Texas Ageratum) Euphorbia, esp. shade tolerant types, but like all Gaillardia (blanket flower) esp. pinks like Punch Bowl & bicolors Heuchera, any Lobelia 'Queen Victoria' (cardinal flower with dark foliage/red flowers) Pachysandra Papaver orientale (oriental poppy) esp. bright colors � can be root cuttings Phlox divaricata (woodland phlox) Primula (primrose) any, esp. P. japonica or P. sieboldi Ratibida columnifera Prairie Coneflower, that�s not yellow Rudbeckia, any commerical named esp. bicolors Tiarella Tinantia erecta, widows tears Tricyrtis (toadlily) Shrubs (esp. dwarf foundation types): Aucuba japonica (Japanese Aucuba) Berberis (barberry) esp. dwarf red, orange, or evergreen types Hamamelis (witch hazel) esp. Jolena, Ruby Glow, Fire Charm Lespedeza thunbergii, (Thunberg bush clover) Leucothoe fontanesia (Drooping Leucothoe) Lindera benzoin (spice bush) Nandina (heavenly bamboo) esp. dwarf or smaller types Osmanthus heterophyllus (aquifolium) Goshiki� Ornamental Grasses: Carex, Chasmanthium latifolium (northern sea oats) esp. variegated one, Miscanthus, & others Vines: any part sun/shade noninvasive perennial or annual sun plants with bright colors: Iresine herbstii Aureoreticulata, Formosa, Blazin Rose

My brother and I built a fort, another fort, and a 2-story fort. Then, we built 3 dog houses for our dogs, a rabbit pen for our 2 rabbits, helped my grandfather remodel his home, and helped him build bee hives. So, we started enjoying building VERY early on. It wasn't something they made us do, just something we loved to do. We were both homeschooled and only had to do school study for about 4 hours a day. That left plenty of time for other activities. We played forest rangers from the time I was 7 until I was, well probably 16! We loved to listen to Old-time radio, specifically "Ranger Bill" and "The Lone Ranger". When I was 10, I started farming with my own little flower garden that my granddaddy helped me start. Then, when I was 12 and my brother was 9, we started our first vegetable garden. It was very small in comparison to my granddaddy's farm but it kept us busy. We grew 10 rows of corn, 25 tomato plants, and some pepper and okra. Since then, we have continued to grow the size of that garden to 5 acres and now we want more to farm. My parents and grandparents (who lived next door) never forced us to work with them. We just wanted to. Instead of having lots of friends our age at school, we made friends with our family. (For which I am so grateful now!) We didn't watch TV (didn't even have one in the house) didn't play on the computer (only got one of those when we started college) and spent as much of our time outdoors as possible. And yes, even after a hard days work building and gardening, my brother and I still enjoyed digging holes! I think its something that kids just like to do. We dug 7 holes that I know of, probably more! One we got 6 feet deep and were starting a tunnel before it collapsed! We had dreams of digging a hole with tunnels into the earth like a cave to be our hideout! If it sounds like a childhood from the 1940's, you're right, it was! But now at age 24 and my brother age 21, we both are best of friends when many siblings hate each other. We have strong ties to our family, work on our family farm, enjoy life and have something to work towards in life so unlike many of our peers in college! I wouldn't trade my childhood for anything in the world! Yep, there were bad times but boy did we have fun! -Rachel

The issue I see with this is that a 1 or 2-week camp isn't going to allow kids the chance to see things grow in any significant way. I mean, you could sprout seeds and send the kids home with seedlings in pots, but you won't be able to create and maintain and harvest a garden. So I'd focus on one-day activities. Scavenger hunts, wildflower collecting and identification, comparing different types of soil by mucking about with dirt and water (three wheelbarrows full: loamy, sandy and clayish), examining a working compost pile, a wildlife "hunt", making sunprints with a variety of foliage (you can use sunprint paper or setacolor soleil brand fabric paint), making scarecrows, building a trellis. The one growing project that you could complete in a wee would be growing alfalfa sprouts. On Monday, give each child a teaspoon of seed, an empty jar, and elastic and a piece of fine screen (so-see-um netting or old sheer curtain fabric). Put the seed in the jar with a bit of water, use the elastic to fasten the screen over the mouth. Swill and drain by inverting the jar. Repeat the swill&drain process twice a day. After 5 days, bring a sandwich for lunch and add the alfalfa sprouts you've grown and enjoy. Kids could take their jar home on Monday, tend it morning and evening through the week, and bring it back on Friday for lunch. Hope that gives you some ideas! Miranda

Your time alone this summer while SO & his kids are off at summer camp has brought home the reality that you're alone in this relationship. You're not part of their family, you're not getting the respect & support you need & deserve, you're the photographer who's never in the picture. Your boyfriend doesn't *sound* like a wonderful loving person at all. He sounds like someone who has you where he wants you. & "selfish" is not a nice thing to say to *anybody* who's alone & feeling abandoned. "Selfish", in fact, sounds like a very accurate thing to call someone who's having a great time & who doesn't want to hear about anyone else's pain or loneliness. Children who remind you that you don't share their last name are *not* signs of a good, loving, 'family' environment, & I wonder how it occurred to them to say such a thing; my very strong suspicion is that they heard it from their mother or their father. According to my uncle & my brother, both of whom know, grieving for a lost child is the worst grief there is. & you not only lost a child, you lost her before you knew her. You lost her when your anticipation was at its height, when your maternal hormones & feelings were at their most intense. It sounds like he!!, & evidently nobody has acknowledged the depth of your grief & the pain you feel every day. Although you must make your own decisions, my impulse is to say, shake the dust of this relationship off your dainty slippers & find someone who is thrilled to have you, who will be ecstatic & honored to share his family with you, who'll be open to marriage & adoption (how many children do you suppose are living in foster care because women who would love to be mothers are tangled up with men who are satisfied with the number of children they have & who don't care if their partners are happy with their position on the perimeter of family life?). Those nice men are out there, & they'll never get a chance while you're living with this guy. Take very good care of yourself. I wish you happiness & fulfillment.