Hi, I am Soh Sing Wee from 2F. I am thrilled by the amount of plants in our school’s eco-garden.

My favourite plant is the Spider Lily. It may look normal but I can find a lot of spiders near this plant.Isthe spiders attracted to the name of the plant or is there some special scentfrom this plant that attracts a lot of spiders?

I will try to find out more by visiting websites on plants.

-by Soh Sing Wee, Pri 2F, Catholic High Primary School

I fell in love with gardening and plants ever since my father brought some plants home.Themoney plantis the only plant whichlasted the longest, ascompared to the rest that my father brought home.

Recently, Iwent to theschool eco-garden with my friends to dosome research. We leant that antsDO live inside the bark of some trees! Our aim was to observe a caterpillar and we did manage fo find one although we do not know which species it was.

During the CIP program, we had to pull out weeds. My friends and I had a great time learning to tell the difference between a weed and a useful plant. We also learnt about the need to removethe roots of the weeds that had formed along the leaves or else the weeds would grow back.

I was surewe pulled out some useful plants along the way, since it was our first time learning how to identify and differentiate the two. Oops.

Nonetheless,I would definitely like to help out more in the school garden.

- by A. Rekha, Pri 4B,Concord Primary School

I found lots of caterpillars eating the leaves of the eggplants in school. I told my teacher and suggested that we should get rid of these pests as the caterpillars create lots of holes on the leaves.

However, my teacher explained that butterflies must have been attracted by the scent of flowers in our science garden and have chosen the eggplant as the breeding ground and have laid their eggs on their leaves.

From this anecdote, I find nature amazing. Plants support the lives of insects such as caterpillars and these caterpillars support the lives of other bigger animals such as birds. It is wonderful to have an ecogarden in school, where we can learn and observe food chains live in action.

-by Joshua Tan, Pri 3F, Catholic High Primary School

I like to go for the Community Involvement Programme (CIP) which involvesgardening because it is fun. I like plucking out the weeds and the dead grass. CIP gardening teaches us how to take care of plants.

It is important to water the plants daily. If we don’t water the plants daily, they will turn brown and die.

Plants are very useful to us. Some plants bear fruits for food for us like the banana tree in our school garden and the vegetables in the vegetable garden. Some have nice flowers with nice smell which help to make the air smell nicer. But we have to be careful of some plants which are harmful like the dumbcane when we do our gardening.

I have learnt a lot of useful information about the caring of plants during the CIP program. I thinkthe gardeners will be very happy because we are helping them take care of their lovely plants. Being a gardener is not easy. But in the future, I will still take part in CIP gardening to help look after the plants in the gardens again.

- by Cheryl Ng, Primary 4B, Concord Primary School