Planting Flowers at Home
During Quarantine

     It was sunny that day, so Dad and I decided to plant flowers in our yard. When we were loosening the soil, we noticed some weeds.

     Dad said, “Look, there used to be yellow flowers here. Why are they gone now?”

     I replied, “Yeah, it used to be so pretty. Let’s dig out these weeds.”

     Dad said, “Ok!”

     Then, Dad used a large shovel to dig out the weeds. However, we quickly noticed that doing so would also cause us to lose a lot of soil. After a discussion, we decided to pull out the weeds by hand. I pulled and pulled, just like the little white rabbit trying to pull out the radish in the nursery rhyme......We spent all morning pulling out the weeds, but I was very happy, because we were able to save our precious soil.

     After lunch, we could finally plant the flowers! Dad ordered two bags of rhizomes. I searched up the names of these rhizomes and how to plant them. One of the bags was full of dahlias, calla lilies, horsetails, and gladioli. These flowers need a lot of sunlight, so we decided to plant them in our sunny front yard. The other bag was full of colorful rockfoils. There were pink ones, purple ones, and white ones. Rockfoils like shade, so we decided to plant them in our shady backyard.

     We started by planting the dahlias in the first bag. Their stolons were very large, and they were shaped like radishes. The stolons of the calla lilies and horsetails resembled chicken nuggets, while those of the gladioli reminded me of peeled onions. Dad dug the holes. Then, I put in the seeds and plant food. Next, we filled the holes. The two of us worked together and finished planting the flowers in the first bag within three hours. 

     “Other than soil, what do the seeds need to grow?” Dad asked me.

 

     “Sunlight and water!” I answered.

     Thus, I turned on the faucet and used a long hose to water the plants. I also washed the car and the driveway. This reminded me of a line from a poem that the poet Wang Anshi wrote for Mr. Huyin: “Look at my little yard, it's open, bright, and clean; because I often clean the yard, there is no moss on the floor tiles. The flowers and trees in the yard have grown even more robustly under my careful care.”
 

     Dad and I decided to plant the rockfoil in the second bag of flowers the next day! As we packed up, I saw red sunset clouds in the sky. They were very pretty!