Theo was running out of ideas to maintain this garden, and as he looked around, he noticed that other students had all the bright plans. Making the gargoyles do it?! Pfft... that was lazy, but also genious. Unfortunately, Theo left his gargoyle in the dorms for safe keeping, AND because he had already finished the homework.

Back to Herbology, though, Theo groooooaned.

How was he supposed to rake up the leaves and his trimmings without a raker or a gargoyle to do it for him? He just had to use his brain. Theo pulled his gloves on tightly, got on his knees and raked up the mess with his own hands.

Now THAT deserved top marks.

What was he supposed to do with it, though?

He managed to get it into a neat-ish pile in front of him, then he tried to remember the next part of the task. Something to do with the compost bin. Maybe he should dump all of this stuff in there? Eh, he would wait and see what the other students would do first, to copy and stuff. Surely they couldn't make their gargoyles do ALL the work.

SPOILER!!: things XO & Bee & Elise

Quote:

Originally Posted by xXxPandora

Professor Bentley said that in order for them to be prepared for lesson two, there were a set of Herbology-related tasks they were to perform for assignment. With the list tucked inside her pocket, the Ravenclaw headed down to the Student Garden, armed with tools. Oh, yes. She did took the liberty of bringing her own - most of them were products of transfiguration, really - because it had become common knowledge now that the sheds were empty.

Beezus ambled down the winding path and stopped when she saw the congregation of Flutterby bushes. She immediately decided that she'd work on those.

Setting her things down on the ground, she inspected the bushes and found out that it hasn't been tended to yet. Perfect. Just what she needed.

So...what to do first?

Hmm. Water? Rake?

"Trim! I should trim and prune first." And then rake the fallen leaves and pruned edges and all that. Watering can come in after the "cleaning up" of the bushes. Good plan, yea?

All right. Gotta get to work.

The brunette pulled her wand out. What was the Trimming Charm again? She always had a bit of a problem when it came to incantations like that. "Flip..nsnip....witit." Right. That was it.

"Flipnsnipwitit!" Wand movement was a Karate chop! Hayaaaaa! Triiiiiiiiiiim. She watched as the Charm worked it magic, trimming that side of the bulky bushes quickly and beautifully. Trim, trim, trim. She moved to the other side, "Flipnsnipwitit. Flipnsnipwitit!" ...Soon enough, the Ravenclaw was satisfied with what she was seeing. "Mhmm. I'm satisfied with this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by iceblossom22

Elise made her way to the Student Garden after a particularly long shower. She deserved said shower, though, having three tryouts that morning. She'd probably have to go again after she completed the assignment, though. Sweat and all that grimey disgusting stuff that stuck to her skin. Yuck.

Oh, look! There was Bee! The blonde bounced over to her pretty friend and pulled her wand out, waving it as a way of greeting. Now, she could help Bee with trimming, she could. She'd done it enough times last term to probably be able to say the incantation without tripping over it so she aimed for a really awkwardly angled branch and breathed in deeply.

"Flipnsnipwitit," she muttered, slashing the branch off quickly along with a few other braches that needed pruning. Snip, snip, trim, trim. This was actually really fun, even if she was mostly only doing it for homework. It was very rewarding homework, though and Professor Bentley didn't have to know that.

Tasks

1) Clean and prep the student gardens for the coming cold season

Rake Leaves
Trim Plants
Prune Plants
Water Things

2) Add organic waste from the student garden maintenance to the compost bin located behind the outdoor stores cupboard.

3) Turn the compost.

She was about to move onto her next task when she looked up and spotted Beezus and Elise. She just walked over to a little bush though and decided to continue working on her next task. Now she was going to trim things. She looked at the plant in front of her and glanced at a rather awkward looking branch - that was the branch she was going to go for.

"flip-n-snip" she tried the first have of the spell feeling the weight of the words on her tongue. "wit-it" and she tried the second half. It felt right so far. "flip-n-snip-wit-it" and she practiced it all together.

And then with a smile on her face she did the wand movement, the wish was like coming home. She had done it so many times that it was like breathing. "Flipnsnipwitit" she added the swish of the wand and her disasterously pokey-looking thing fell to the ground as it was trimmed right off of the bush. She was glad of that. That meant that she had gotten the spell right of course.

Just when Sonea had hide the Nightshade in her bag she started to walk further, she needed to bring more ingredients with her if she wanted to do it right, she needed three more ingredients what means three more flowers or plants. But… this time she had no idea which plant she could use for her potion lesson! She was not good in Herbology and she had no idea which plants where good for making a potion, but… Sonea had not came unprepared to the student garden, she had brought a book with her, full with pictures from all the plants she could use!

Sonea stopped in the middle of the garden and took the book out of her bag and opened her book somewhere in the middle and looked at the first ingredient she saw in her book. “Where can I find a motherwort?" mumbled Sonea while she looked around her. She saw the plant she needed nowhere and she almost thought that it was not in the garden when she saw it! Quickly she ran to the plant and put it in her bag next the Nightshade.

Blue had homework to do. Plant-ish homework. Unfortunately, she was missing most of the necessary tools. The obvious answer would be to stick to someone who had them like glue, which, semi-ironically was also among the tools she was missing. She strolled into the garden, casually waving her wand and not paying much attention to the few purple sparks emitting from it's tip.

Whooooo to latch onto?

Her eyes scanned the garden, stopping by the pretty Flutterby bushes.

And Beatrice.

She zoomed over to the Eaglette, surpressing a giggle. She came up right up behind the prefect. "BOOO." *giggle!snort* "Did I scaaaare you? Are you talking to yourself, Beeeeatrice?"

There was no getting rid of her now, sorry Bee.

"Want help? I'm gonna help you." Blue grinned all toothily up at the slightly taller girl. "Should I water it? I'm gonna water it." Blue pointed at the plant. "Aguamenti." A short stream shot out from her Hawthorn wand.

Beam!Beam!Beam.

After Kace was done raking the leaves and threw them away, he decided he wanted to water some plants. They did look dry and could use some nourishment. Kace had to remember the spell. What was that water spell Belle taught him...what was it??

Then a light bulb flickered on in his brain. He remembered. "Alright plants let's get you some water." he said and then he said the incantation, "Aquamenti!" and then water was coming out of his wand.

WOAH! This was pretty cool! He waved it and then the flowers were getting watered. He felt happy that he was helping the greenhouse and giving the plants life. Now onto the next task which was cutting the plants that had extra growth on them.

So, spells were all about imagination after all, because that was what everyone kept telling him: imagine. Nodding at the girl as Forrest hid his boredom, he didn't even bother to close his eyes. He just didn't have any interest whatsoever in cleaning spells. He wasn't a girl. Cleaning was a girl thing.

She could probably see him forcing himself to be more enthusiastic about it, though. He did try to visualise or better phrased, he tried to get himself to visualise. This was easier than the gargoyle stuff, though. One moment it was there, the other moment...

"Scourgify." It was still there the next moment.

"Maybe you should do it." So like, she didn't waste time teaching him stuff, because it was obvious he wouldn't get her good intention.

After Kace was done watering the plants, it was time to do some trimming. Only a small trim, he will do the big trims later. He saw all the other students doing the task and knew he was doing the right thing.

Alright so the spell for cutting. He knew it began with a D. Could it be Dechundo? No...Deffundo...Almost...Diffindo! YUP that was it!

He smiled at himself for being so smart. He inherited the smartness from his mother since he knew she was a witch. He began to cut the over excessive dead leaves and thorns and mold from the plants. "Diffindo!" he said and then the plant went from wilting to blooming.

There was a warm feeling over his heart. It was the feeling of doing the right thing. It always felt good. His mother taught him that early on. Alright next thing he had to do was pruning and trimming the big plants.

Sonea looked again in her book and searched for a new ingredient she could use and found a flower she knew, she had seen it before in a muggle garden and had once asked one of her maids which flower it was. Her maid had told her that it was a Lavender and that they were smelling nicely. Sonea had immediately ordered her maid to bring her one Lavender and she had noted that they were indeed smelling very good. But her mother didn’t liked them so there were no Lavenders in her mother’s garden.

The young girl closed her book again and after a few minutes of searching she found where she was looking for, a few Lavenders were standing next each other. Sonea sniffed with a smile the sweet scent from the flowers before she started to search for her next and last ingredient.

Beezus has just straightened up, having finished flipnsnipwitit'ing that part of the bushes when her Captain bounced towards her. Elise was even waaaaaaving her wand. "Hey, Captain Sparrow." She greeted back with a two-finger salute despite her fingers being smudged with dirt now. She did love playing with the soil.

Would you look at that...Elise was helping her trim out those bushes. Right-o! The more the merrier. And their party was getting bigger because here's Mika, joining them too! Ravenclaw girls and their trimming abilities? One of a kind, really. You can never find a bunch of girls who said their flipnsnipwitit and did that karate chop (HAYAAAAAH!) movement like Ravenclaw females do it. Right?

Right!

"Nice to see you here, Mika." Beam! And more trimming on her side....this bush was nearing "decent stage"...meaning it was close to looking more decent now unlike minutes ago when it looked like a miniature sunken nose of a ship.

A little trimmy trim trim here and there. Clip, clip at that side. And VOILA! Decent stage REACHED! Huzzah, huzzahness.

And then came that BOO! ..."Sonofahippogriff!" She jumped. Nearly tripped over even. She didn't see her little dollface Blue coming over. Merlin... "No, you didn't scare me." Boo. "So what if I am talking to myself? I need expert advise sometimes." Not a really Beezus response but hey, she was learning from people. They were teaching her to be witty and all. That was witty, no? Hah. But she really did talk to herself. It comes off naturally.

Okay, okay. Blue was joining the fun! "No, no...not yet. Don't water yet." Watering comes after the whole clean up process. Did she not know that? Now she would. "Help me rake these leaves and trimmed down bits and all that?" Heh. Nope. She didn't have a choice because Beezus was handing her out one of the hand rakes.

All right!

"Elise, Mika....you guys continue trimming, while Hazel and I rake." That way, they'll finish faster. Less hassle too. Chop chop, eaglettes!

SPOILER!!: Tasks

Tasks

1) Clean and prep the student gardens for the coming cold season

Rake Leaves
Trim Plants
Prune Plants
Water Things

2) Add organic waste from the student garden maintenance to the compost bin located behind the outdoor stores cupboard.

3) Turn the compost.

She glanced at the trees and plants in front of her and just frowned. Seriously some of these things were in such bad shape that it was depressingly sad. There was one tree with a limb that looked positively unalive and she didn’t like that at all. Life was the one thing that was what this garden needed.

She a glad, very glad, that she had worn her rugged jeans today. Sure they didn’t look that clean what with the grass stains all over the knees and legs, and even some tears on the pants. So she just glanced at the tree and slowly began to climb it. Her wand was held securely in her leg holster right above her left knee. She was now standing a branch above the not-so-pretty one, with just a wand in hand and her gloves on.

“Alright people careful,” she yelled from the tree before pointing her wand at the tree branch. With a swish she used the trimming spell to trim that branch off of the tree “Flipnsipwitit” she watched at the leaves she was trimming off of the branch fell gently to the ground. Now, for the rest of the branch. The trimming charm would not in any way work for this. SO the next thing she did was wand brandished again she tried to cleave the branch from the tree. “Diffindo” she swipped her wand and the branch began to teeter. Now, as it was loosely connected to the tree she tried to trim the last tendrils of wood holding it into place. “Flipnsipwitit” and she swiped her wand, the branch began to fall – almost too quickly, but almost in slow motion.

“Impedementa” she called pointing her wand at the branch and it stopped moving all together. The girl kept her wand trained on the branch as she carefully and almost expertly jumped from the tree and landed in the soft soil next to it. She was just glad for the soil – sure, her ankle might have hurt a bit but it wasn’t a big deal. She made sure no one was under the branch before she dropped it to the ground by moving her wand away from it.

THUD!
The branch was now resting on the ground and ready to be dragged to be composted. Perfect – now she was just going to turn and work on something else first.

After Kace was done trimming his branches from his bushes, he noticed there was extra leaves, he would need to do that when he got back. He gathered all the extra branches and excess growths on the plants and landed them in the compost pile. He did a slam dunk to make it fun.

Then he raked up some more leaves and realized these leaves were falling off very quickly. Well winter was fast approaching. He raked the leaves into a small pile and then picked them up and deposited them in the compost pile.

Next on the agenda is he needed to prune some plants. How was he gonna do that? Oh that meant to cut off the little branches! He already cut off the big ones, might as well dig in deeper into the bushes and plants to see the damage.

He used his gloves for this incase his hands got scraped and cut. He did not want to get an infection. He cut the little branches.

Snip Snip Snip.

After he snipped all the little branches, he collected them all in a bundle and deposited them in the compost pile again.

This was hard work. He wiped his forehead to remove some sweat off. If only his mother could see him now. He would say he did labor in school. It was all for a good cause though.

By this point, Sky had given up on seeing how many of her classmates were also here. Nope, she was solely focused on the task now. And right now, she needed some ginger. Which she was sure that she'd seen in here somewh.... there it was! She hurried over and clipped a couple of the flowers, placed them in parchment pouch and tucked the pouch into her robe pocket alongside her other two ingredients, vials and the tweezers.

Three down....

Dylan made his way down to the Student Garden, vials, parchment, and gloves all on his person. He couldn't very well carry his whole bag around the school. Not with everything that was in it. That would have been too much of a hassle.

Nope...He was looking for a certain plant. One that he'd not only be needing for Potions...but for himself in just a few minutes. Naturally, Dylan already had it mapped out in his head what he was going to collect. The smartest people would, though. And since he knew things about Potions and ingredients...Yea.

...and there it was.

Dittany.

Inching closer to the plant that was also known as the Burning Bush...he removed his gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. It was so named because it liked to emit bursts of fire...and he wasn't looking to get burned. That was not what he wanted to use the extra dittany for. Nope.

Kneeling down, the Slytherin removed his pocket knife, cutting several blooms and leaves from the plant. Removing a vial he'd enlarged a bit for this, he dropped them into it and twisted the lid back on.

One ingredient down. Three more to do.

After Kace was done snipping little branches and cleaning up, he forgot he could have used a spell to help him out. "Wow wayyy to go Kace." he told himself smacking himself on the forehead. He saw all the other students using it. He knew the name of the spell and it was.....

Flipnsnipwitit

Now how was he gonna say it. "Flip-n-snip-wit-it" that was going to be a mouthful. "Flipnsniptit?" Nooo that wasn't it. "Flipnsnipwitit!" yup he was getting there a few more times. "Flipnsnipwitit....Flipnsnipwitit..Flipnsnipwitit. ..." YUP he finally got it.

Now he was going to put it to work! He walked around and saw a huge bush with huge twigs sticking out. Awww poor bush. Kace was going to help. The wand movement was with the swish of the wand. Kace muttered the incantation saying "Flipnsnipwitit!" and then with the swish of his wand and nothing happened. Hmm maybe more concentration on the bush.

Kace closed his eyes, "Flipnsnipwitit!" and with the swish of his wand, the branches broke. "AW YEAH!" Kace said with a little dance. He finally did it!

Knotgrass.

She literally wend like the wind...into the student garden. The potions mistress had given a task. TASK. She had a fair knowledge about some ingredients. Playing assistant to her dad had its benefits. She could identify stuff and blah blah.

Now, task at hand.

She went past the packed students and towards the growing patch. Knotgrass, knotgrass, knotgrass. AH THERE!

She spotted the plant huddled between some others. She went closer, clipped some of it and pocketed it.

The last thing to do for today... Kace was so exhausted. He felt the sweat dripping from the back of his neck all the way to his back. It felt gross and he would need a shower after this.

The last task, since he trimmed the branches off the trees, got the excess stuff of the plants that harmed them and then water the plants...he might as well trim the bushes with clippers.

Kace got some clippers and trimmed the bushes to keep them down. He did not want them to grow anymore.

Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. and even more Snips

He did not mind this task at all. It seemed calming. He saw all the remains of the trimmed bushes in the grass. He picked it up well tried to and then he added it to the compost pile. After he squatted two more times, he was finally done taking care of his side. It seemed all clean and healthy.

"Ahh my work here is done." Kace sighed and then went back to the castle to take the well deserved shower he needed.

SPOILER!!: Tasks

Tasks

1) Clean and prep the student gardens for the coming cold season

Rake Leaves
Trim Plants
Prune Plants
Water Things

2) Add organic waste from the student garden maintenance to the compost bin located behind the outdoor stores cupboard.

3) Turn the compost.

Okay so she had pruned that tree – she’d go back and prune some more things afterwards. But, as she looked around she noticed the branch had landed near a rather dry plant. That was no good. She knelt down next to the little plant and glanced over the leaves – they were kind of greying out.

Taking out her wand she pointed at it and concentrated for a moments time. “Aguamenti” with a flick of her wand a jut of water came pouring out of the tip of her elm wand. There, the little plant seemed to be so much happier now. Turning to the plant next to it she check its dryness even moving the dirt around the base of the plant. It was a little dry as well.

She frowned and then cast the spell once more, “aguamenti” the water poured again from her wand seeping over the plant as it drank the water she watched it begin to sit up more. It seemed happier, more alive, refreshed really.

Mo skidded into the student garden, nearly falling over on the gravel path in his quest to find yet another ingredient for potions class in the limited time he had left. Where had all his time gone, anyway? Mo fished his dragonhide gloves out of his back pocket and immediately went on the hunt for a likely plant.

See... here was the thing. Mo wanted to do a good job collecting ingredients, but he wasn't comfortable with uprooting perfectly healthy plants to help replenish Lafay's potions stock. If she wanted to scrounge up Bentley's plants, she would have to do it herself, wouldn't she?

Except... Mo spotted some dandelions poking up from between the irises. Dandelions were generally considered to be weeds, and Mo himself would probably be pulling out of that bed in a few days for Herbology homework. What was the harm in pulling them now? Dandelion roots could be an excellent ingredient.

Mo knelt along the path and carefully dug out the full dandelion plants, keeping the roots intact and shaking off the dirt before they went into his satchel.

SPOILER!!: Tasks

Tasks

1) Clean and prep the student gardens for the coming cold season

Rake Leaves
Trim Plants
Prune Plants
Water Things

2) Add organic waste from the student garden maintenance to the compost bin located behind the outdoor stores cupboard.

3) Turn the compost.

Alright she had pruned things, trimmed things, watered things, and raked the leaves. Now there wasn’t all that much left to do really so she walked over to where she had left the tree branch and sighed. Now, how could she easily clear this away and compost it? She wondered as she glanced at the limb in front of her.

She glared at it for a moment as she thought. For some reason she glared when she thought. Taking out her wand she began to twirl it in her hand as she thought about what to do next. She needed to split it so it could be grabbed more easily. But how – she’d use diffindo she decided with a nod. Taking her wand she made a slicing motion through the air along the center of the tree limp. “Diffindo!” She watched at the wood cracked apart. Stepping back she glanced at the wood, it was still too long.

“Diffindo” she tried again as she sliced across the limb with her wand – and there it was now half of the size. She continued splitting the wood across and making it into fire-wood sized logs. There. Once it was all split apart she grabbed a clumb of the wood and walked it over to the organic waste section. Well, she didn’t put it inside because that would waste good firewood, so all she did was stack the wood next to it. Then she finished stacking it and quickly began to collect the leaves in her hands before stopping.

That was silly. That would take far too long. Leaves in hands she’d have to go back and clean again and loose leaves with every step. So, she did the next best thing. She thought back to the classes she had in latin over the summer. Creo was create…and blankets were either vestis or lodix. She tried a swish and flick and muttered “creo-lodix” nothing. She tried and up down, up down right and the words and again nothing. She tried swish and flick again and “genero ludix” and it happened a blanket appeared.

Holy tamole! She had done it. Carefully she transported all of the items onto the conjured blanket and then tied the top of it before walking over to the organic waste and depositing it all there. She was awesome right creating a spell that was awesome.

Since she wasn't far from the student garden, and since she was already here, Peyton decided to come looking for something else that might serve as an ingredient. She still tasted the raspberry and vanilla ice cream on her tongue. Made her want to sneak off and have another quickie bowl, but she only had a few minutes to spare.

What. A. Pity.

Oh, well. At least it was a nice day and Professor Lafay didn't hate them. She'd said so herself and that made Peyton smile. A lot.

SMIIIIIIIIIIILE.

Not finding anything that struck her fancy, she flopped in the middle of the garden. She scratched her knee as something itched, still looking for something useful.

Then scratched again. What in Merlin's--

OH!

LOOK!

A...what was that? Not being one to be afraid of insects, Peyton looked closer at the thing rubbing on her knee. Oh, hehee. It was fuzzy caterpillar. She gently picked it up and set it aside. She didn't want to crush it. It wasn't a butterfly yet.

Wait.

She looked at it again. "I need you," she said, taking out a little bitty jar. If a cockroach worked for potions, a caterpillar should too, right? Right. She scooped the fuzzy thing up and placed inside the jar then stood.

One more ingredient to goooo.

SPOILER!!: Tasks

Tasks

1) Clean and prep the student gardens for the coming cold season

Rake Leaves
Trim Plants
Prune Plants
Water Things

2) Add organic waste from the student garden maintenance to the compost bin located behind the outdoor stores cupboard.

3) Turn the compost.

She was almost exhausted now and there may have been a few twigs sticking out of the girl’s hair as she proceeded to look at the compost pile. All the fresh things were on the top so she knew they wouldn’t work right? They needed to be damp and to decompose and all that stuff.

She glanced at the compost and felt her stomach turn somewhat – she knew, deep down, that there could very well be animal dung in there. So the next thing she did was to take off her protective gloves and summon the yellow elbow length gloves her mom had sent her when she told her about the laundry thing.

Putting them on she placed her Dragonhide gloves on above them and reached into the organic waste bin and compost bins and began put move things around. There, now the compost was on the top and the things that needed to be composted and had to wait for were on the bottom. That worked right? She was sure it had as she stepped back and smiled at her handy work the gardens were just a little bit closer to being ready for the up coming winter months.

Blue grinned all proud of herself. "Totally did, totally did." She prodded Beatrice's side with her index finger. "You saaaaaid, 'sonofahippogriff'! I was theeeere, I saw. Talking to yourself is one of the earliest signs of madness. Though I suppose you could already be mad." Most Ravenclaws were.

It was a pretty insane house, how could you not loose it?!

...Oh.

......Oh no.

She didn't just squirt the plant. Course not. Definitely not. Her smile fell into a slightly panicky grimace and while Beatrice was talking to the other girls; she sent a quick drying charm - "exaresco" - at the plant. It dried up almost instantly and Blue beamed, incredibly proud of herself.

She was positively magical, yep.

Raking time, cool. She looked around and couldn't find a ruddy rake. She widened her eyes all puppy-ish and held out her hand to Elise. Please please please pleeeeease, Cap'ain?

With sugar on top?

SNIP. SNIP. SNIP.

Assignment or not, Amara was certain she would have visited the student garden any time later. All by herself, yes. The garden was perhaps the most cheerful looking place from the whole school. Why was Hogwarts dull this year?

SNIP.SNIP. "OUCH!"

Her thoughts reeled back to the task at hand. She spotted some..blood. Ah, great. She licked the little wound. No, I'm not going to hospital for that! And find them charge extra knuts for treatment. She was loosing knuts already. She went back to trimming the plants.

The Lioness woman had given a task. The best one by far. Though she had an idea that she could make her gargoyle do it. Heh. She eyed the column with scrutiny.

Yes, a little raised at the end. She moved towards the end of the column and began leveling the plant. Everything was about perfection. She kept trimming it to perfection.

After a few concentrated cuts, she stood up to examine her work.

Even. Leveled. Beautiful. Good job, me!

Laura looked around the garden to try and find something cool to do, when she saw that some of the tree branches needed trimming she decided to do that, it was sure a-shame that she couldn't prune the roses or anything if there was any roses she wasn't actually sure what was in the garden, as long as there wasn't any girl-eating plants she would be alright.

Laura smiled as she started to trim some of the plants, she knew that they needed to do as much as she could but unfortunately she wasn't sure if she should do the big plants so she left them and just did the little ones.

She pushed the vacuum cleaner in. It was for cleaning right, assignment or not. Cleaning is good. So, yeah... problem dealt. She was growing to like the muggle machine a lot, now that it was very useful. She whipped out her wand and tapped the machine. Good spell Prof. Airey had taught them.

"Vacavus!"

The machine buzzed to life and Amara trained it on the fallen leaves she'd just trimmed out. She gave pressure to certain parts that didn't bulge. She hummed as the work went on. Then she carefully suctioned the places around the plants.

OFF. And...TADA! The place was clean. SMUG.

She didn't want to use the machine on the large leaves and stem, didn't want the patch show repeated. She took to manually raking the leaves out of the path. She raked them patiently, singing as she did.