Fort Bend County Master Gardeners shared their knowledge and experience with fourth- and fifth-grade Girl Scouts on Saturday, November 16. Approximately 20 girls attended a Girl Scout Badge event hosted by the FBMG Youth Activity Committee at the Bud O'Shieles Community Center at 1330 Band Road in Rosenberg. YAC Director Donna Blackburn of Sugar Land said requirements established by Girl Scouts for the badge include visiting a garden, exploring garden design, learning to choose garden plants, experimenting with seeds and then growing seeds in their garden. Master Gardeners Lynn Lucas of Fulshear and Annette Beadles of Richmond used the word "Plants" to underline the basics of what plants need: A place to live, light, air, nutrients, thirst for water and soil. Lucas discussed the different needs of plants. "Group like plants together. You don't put a cactus with a fern in the same container," she said, explaining a cactus wouldn't need as much water as a fern. Plant labels and seed packets give instruction and guidance on what the plant needs to grow and thrive. The Scouts were given seed packets for a hands-on exploration on what information is on them, what it means and how to apply it to plants in the garden. For example, "The back of a seed package will tell you if you need full sun or part sun," Lucas said. Tall plants go in the back of the flower bed and short plants in the front, she said. "You do that so they all get good sunlight." Answering a Scout question, she said depth referred to how deep they need to plant the seeds in the soil. She talked about thinning plants if the seeds sprout and grow up too closely together.

Fifth-grader Cassidy of Richmond had no problem spending her Saturday morning at the center. "I'm excited about the part about garden design. I don't know much about garden design. That's why I'm here to learn about things." She has a plant and flower encyclopedia at home. "It's a big thing filled with plants and flowers and lots of pictures." She also has a manual for the gardening badge at home. "It just seems cool to me to have a bunch of pretty flowers because I just love looking at them." Fourth-grader Illianna of Richmond said, "I grew into gardening." She explained, "When I was a little kid I went to a garden center for the first time." Looking at all the plants, she really liked roses, and they bought some and planted them at home. "A year later I got little flowers that had miniature flowers inside of them with little patterns. They were adorable - red, orange, yellow and one was yellow, pink and purple. They were really pretty. They grew so much and almost covered my entire front yard. Every week we had to trim them a little bit." After the classroom instruction, the Scouts toured the butterfly garden in the Master Gardeners Demonstration Gardens.