Science + love = the perfect valentine
Courtesy photo The Hayden Meadows Green Thumb Club is presenting a local assisted living facility with fresh tulips the students tricked into blooming just in time for Valentine’s Day. From left, back row: Casey Dolan, Hanna Donlan, Gus Taylor, Max Taylor, Ian Taylor and Carter Librande. Front row, from left: Lena Carpenter, Karsten Towery, Shayla Littlefield and Noah Toto.
Courtesy photo Hayden Meadows students dig up cans of tulips in early January to trick the flowers into blooming for Valentine’s Day. From left: Gus Tayor, Karsten Towery, Carter Librande, Ian Taylor, Max Taylor, Hanna Donlan, Shayla Littlefield and Lena Carpenter.
Shayla Littlefield, left, Ian Taylor and Karsten Towery dig into cans of tulips to prepare them for an early bloom to be given away to the residents of an assisted care facility for Valentine’s Day. (Courtesy photo)
HAYDEN — Members of the Hayden Meadows Elementary Green Thumb Club have a little trick up their sleeves for making the most memorable valentines.
The young nature stewards coaxed pink and red tulips into blooming early, just in time to be presented to residents of a local assisted living facility for Valentine's Day.
"We learned that you can actually force a tulip to grow by making it think it's spring by putting it in the warmness after you freeze them," Green Thumb member and fifth-grader Gus Taylor said Wednesday.
Gus said it feels nice to know these special flowers will show how much the people in the care facility are loved.
"It will probably make them really happy that it's being delivered on Valentine's Day," he said. "Then they know that someone planned it ahead of time for them."
Hayden Meadows art teacher Vern Harvey, who oversees the greenhouse program at the school, explained that the kids planted the tulip bulbs in cans in the school gardens last fall so they could get cold and freeze. Then, the kids dug them up out of the snow in early January, warmed them up in the 50-degree greenhouse, "and Valentine's Day we're blooming."
It's a project Harvey's greenhouse students have done for several years, and it's one that's handled with a lot of love.
"It's really good to see the kids are so immersed and engaged," he said. "They're thrilled to be giving them to someone else. It is a great lesson for them, for the students to know there are things they can do to brighten other people's worlds."