Planting Bulbs

From the window, Charlotte could see Mariah and Jolena out in the yard. They looked busy, so she went out to see what they were doing.

Each doll had a spoon in her hand. They were sitting in the garden near the little cherub statue.

The two dolls appeared to be trying to dig dirt from the ground with spoons. They looked up when she came close.

"What are you doing, girls?" she asked them.

"We learned that if you plant bulbs in the fall," Mariah replied, "you'll have lovely flowers in the spring."

"Yes," said, Jolena. "We want to have flowers to cheer up the little cherub statue when spring comes, because he has to stay out in the cold all winter."

"It's very nice to have flowers in the spring," Charlotte said, "but where are your bulbs?"

"Why, they're right here," Jolena replied, showing Charlotte a collection of bulbs on the ground. "Didn't you see them?"

"This is a small bulb," Mariah explained. "We think it will give us a small plant with small flowers."

"This bulb is not so small. It's big," Jolena said. "We think it will grow big flowers."

"Here's one that's bigger. It should grow even bigger flowers," Mariah explained.

"This bulb is the biggest," Jolena said. "We think it will grow flowers that are the biggest of all."

"So you're planting these?" Charlotte asked. "These bulbs won't give you flowers."

"They won't?" Asked Mariah.

Mariah and Jolena looked at each other, puzzled.

"But we read in an online gardening blog that if you plant bulbs in the fall, you will have flowers in the spring," Jolena explained. 

"It was online, so it must be true," Mariah added.

"Not everything you read or see online is true, Mariah," Charlotte said, "but in this case the person who wrote the blog probably just thought that if you were smart enough to be reading a gardening blog, you would know what kind of bulbs to plant," she continued. "You are smart dolls. You can read and understand what you read, but you haven't been out of your boxes long. This is new for you. You need flower bulbs to get flowers from the bulbs you plant."

"Then what are these bulbs for?" Jolena asked.

"These are light bulbs. They will give you light if you put them into a lamp that is plugged into an electrical outlet," Charlotte explained. "That's a special hole in the wall that brings electricity to where we need it in and around the house."

"The little bulbs give a little bit of light. The big ones give more light, and the biggest bulb gives the most light of all." 

"Then how can we give the cherub some flowers in the spring?" Mariah wanted to know.

"I'll go into the house and look," Charlotte suggested. "I think I saw some flower bulbs in the garage. You two can go back to digging while I run get them."

The girls picked up their spoons and began to dig. After a while Charlotte appeared, dragging a bag of something that looked to Jolena, who liked to cook, a little like garlic.

"These are flower bulbs," Charlotte said.

"We can open the bag and plant them here, so the little cherub will have flowers to look at after the long, cold winter."

The three dolls thought about that. They could imagine daffodils.

Or maybe it would be tulips growing in the flower bed.

Charlotte gave each doll a bulb to plant.

Then she picked up one for herself.

"Mandy told me that not all flowers come from bulbs. Some come from seeds," Charlotte said. "We wait until spring to plant flowers that come from seeds. Some flowers plant their own seeds, like the dandelion.

They do that in the summer or in the fall. The yellow dandelion flower turns into a white, fluffy ball. The wind or animals blow the seeds away, and they fly through the air, like little umbrellas."

"Then in the spring, new plants grow. They make more dandelion flowers," Charlotte continued.

Charlotte brought another spoon from the house. The three dolls dug holes in the dirt and placed a flower bulb in each one. While they did that, they imagined the pretty flowers coming up in the spring.

Their backs were turned, so they didn't notice the little cherub smiling. 

Can you see the cherub smile?

Cast--

Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen

Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris

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Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. 

Author's page on Amazon. 

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Image on Mariah's yellow T-shirt used with permission, from Free To Be Kids, where human-size shirts with this image are available.

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Copyright © 2018, 2023 by Peggy Stuart

In Bloom

Emil looked at the flower. It was pretty, but it was also interesting. "What do you think it’s for?" He asked Billy.

"Well," said Billy, "I know that people and dolls use flowers to decorate their homes and other places. They give flowers to someone they care about."

Then Billy thought for a bit. "Flowers must have another reason for being, though," he said. "I know that there were already flowers when dinosaurs were around, and that was before people and before there were any dolls."

"There are some flowers people don't bring into the house," Emil pointed out, "like the flowers on that tree."

"Some flowers just make the garden pretty," Billy agreed, "but I don't know what they're really for."
Both boys thought about that. Then they looked at each other. "Let's ask Mandy!" they both said at once.

Mandy was having a peaceful morning knitting a dress for Charlotte. She could always tell when the other dolls had a question about science, and she looked up when the two boys came into the room.

"Mandy," Billy began, "we were looking at the plants outside and noticed that a lot of them have flowers right now."

"Yes," Emil said, "and we were wondering what the flowers are for, other than to look pretty for us."

Mandy put down her knitting. "You're right to think flowers have a purpose," she agreed, moving her glasses to the top of her head. "It's how many plants make more of themselves. It will be easier to explain if we look at a real flower," she added.

Mandy and the boys went back outside to look at the flowers.

Mandy looked closely at one of the flowers. "If we look at the inside of this flower, we can see there are things sticking up," Mandy pointed out. "This taller thing in the middle is called the pistil (PISS-tul)."

"Like a gun?" Billy asked. He thought a pistol was a kind of gun.

"Well," Mandy replied, "it sounds the same, but it's spelled differently." Then she moved her finger to another part of the flower. "This other kind of thing sticking up is called a stamen (STAY-men). You see there are several of these all around the pistil. In this flower, they aren't as tall. In some flowers, you can hardly see them."

The boys looked where Mandy was pointing.

"The stamen makes something called pollen (PAW-len)," Mandy explained. "That's a sort of powder that's made up of very tiny things, too small to see without a microscope." 

"I remember what a microscope is," Billy said. "It helps us see something that's very small."

"That's right, Billy," Mandy agreed. "The pollen needs to get to the pistil in the same flower or a different flower of the same kind. Then the flower will make seeds, and the seeds can make new plants when they fall to the ground or get carried away and dropped somewhere else."

"How does the pollen get to the pistil," Emil asked. "A powder doesn't have legs."

"You're right," Mandy agreed. "That's why flowers are pretty."

The boys looked at each other in surprise.

"The petals on the flowers are bright colors," Mandy went on. "The colors let insects, like bees, and other creatures, like hummingbirds, know they are there. They come to visit the flower to eat the pollen or to drink a sweet drink the flowers make to reward them for coming. That's why hummingbird feeders are red or red and yellow."

"It sounds like the flowers are throwing a party," Emil said.
"In a way," Mandy agreed, "they are, but it's more like having a friend over, because they usually have only one visitor at a time."

"How does that get the pollen to the pistel," Billy wanted to know.

"That's how the pollen gets its legs," Mandy explained. "Let's say a butterfly or a bee or some other insect comes to visit the flower. The bee walks around in the flower, collecting nectar to take back to the hive."

"The bee gets pollen from this flower all over her body," Mandy went on. "She also leaves some pollen behind from any other flowers she has visited. When she visits another flower, some of the pollen from that flower gets left behind. Often it ends up on the sticky tip of the pistil. When that happens, the flower can make seeds."

"Like the seeds of a dandelion?" Emil asked.

"I've seen dandelions in the yard," Emil went on. "They are all yellow, but then one day the yellow petals are gone, and they are full of little white parachutes that can fly away when you blow on them."

"Yes," Mandy agreed. "That's one way flowers spread their seeds, but many flowers put their seeds in a pod."

"Sometimes," she continued, "the seed pods are good to eat. That's what fruit is."

"You mean, like apples?" Emil asked.
"Yes," Mandy agreed. "Sometimes you can eat the seed with the fruit, but with some fruit, like apples, you take the seeds out or eat all but the part with seeds."

"People throw away the part with the seeds," Mandy continued. "If it landed on the ground, it might grow into an apple tree, but we don't throw apple cores on the ground. We put them in the trash. There are people who grow apple trees for others to buy."
"What about the fruit that has seeds you can eat?" Emil asked.

"That's a different way seeds can spread," Mandy said. "Animals that eat fruit with the seeds leave their droppings out in the wild, and the seeds can sprout there."

Talking about fruit made Billy hungry. "Let's go have some fruit right now," he suggested.

So they did. The three dolls went into the house and pretended to eat some blueberries. They were good. They were yummy seed pods! They pretended to eat the fruit, seeds and all.

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia


Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz or Classic Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to a charity that supports pediatric cancer, such as CURE Childhood Cancer, St. Baldrick's Foundation or St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM Pacific Time.


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Copyright © 2020 by Peggy Stuart