The plants are looking great, and with instructions from Paul the JWT gardener, I decided that they were big enough to be moved out of the greenhouse and into cooler air, ready to be planted in a raised bed later in the week. The reason I did not do this sooner was to ensure their survival by making sure there was no chance of frost as it is now late May, and also to allow them to have grown to become substantial enough to survive the transition.
The pots which have not sprouted any seedlings have also been moved as well. I did not want to throw their contents away, but instead, gathered all of the soil and newspapers from each one and put them in a larger plant pot. Who knows, maybe they will still grow!
I think the reason why some of the pots did not grow anything is partly because early in the project, I moved the few pots with small seedlings in (see post 'Metgrowth week 1') onto self-watering trays. These pots were placed in trays filled with water to ensure that they were continually moist, a perfect environment for small seedlings. I was trying to preserve them as best as I could, knowing that they might not get as much water as they should due to people in the building forgetting about them. I did not think that people would actually want to come and water the seedlings!
Therefore, the other pots which had not shown any sign of life, were subsequently forgotten about and dried up because the people from the office who came and looked after the greenhouse only watered those which they could see were showing signs of growing in the trays.
It is a shame that the whole greenhouse was not filled with seedlings, but there are fourty pots which are doing really well and I am alreadt looking forward to planting them together to form Stage 3 of the project: the display of the wildflower garden.
Originally, I had intended to plant the seedlings in around 50 individual decorative vases and place them where the greenhouse has been standing. I wanted to completely cover the concrete slab in the center of the lawn in wildflowers. However, during the project's development that this original idea for 'Stage 3' cannot come to fruition, because the agency needs the space for another event coming soon. Besides as a student I cannot afford 50 ornamental garden pots!
So, bearing in mind the changes in the original plan, I have had a rethink about what to do with the seedlings now that they are out of the greenhouse.
I did not want to leave them in the fragile signed pots as they could be easily damaged and may even blow away! I have decided to plant them all together in a raised bed which I ordered last week. This will unite the seedlings and look more like a garden area, and will give the piece a real unity. I also have a plan to put named plant tags next to the seedlings, each name corresponding with the name on the pot so that the participants from the event can see whose plants survived this 3 month project! In uniting the plants like this, I still want to maintain a sense of individual endeavour where one pot represents one person in the agency. I intend to achieve this though tagging the seedlings - a named pot will be replaced by a named tag!
I will post my photographs of the removal of the greenhouse and the week's growth progress as soon as possible. It seems someone has taken a shine to my camera and I appear to have misplaced it...
I will be going into Knightsbridge as soon as the raised bed is delivered and I will of course be taking more photographs (hopefully when I am reunited with my camera!) of the seedling's transfer from pot to raised bed.
I will keep you updated.
On Monday 25th May 2009, a dear friend of mine, David Douthwaite, tragically passed away. Not only was he a wonderful and talented person whom I looked up to enormously in the agency, but he was also the one person who organised for me to obtain permission to put my Metgrow greenhouse on the roof terrace of JWT. He always believed in me and my work. Any time I had doubts about my project or concerns about people's responses in the building, which was frequently in the beginning, (see 'The only thing growing, is doubt.' post,) he was always there to reassure me and boost my confidence again, telling me not give up on my ideas, and to just give it time. He was the man who motivated and encouraged me on through this whole experience and was the driving force behind it's success.
I have therefore decided to dedicate the wildflower garden to him. My sense of loss will never go away but I will always be able to look back with happy memories of a dear friend who wanted me to succeed and always went out of his way to help me. I count myself truly fortunate to have known such a man who gave his time freely without any wish for personal gain. He was so very special.
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