A SPONGE GARDEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 27 (Supplement)

A SPONGE GARDEN

To watch the sprouting of seeds in the spring is such great fun, isn't it? I wonder if you have ever tried to grow grass on a sponge. It grows so quickly, is a lovely green, and when it is about three inches high you can stick some small flowers into the holes in the sponge and it makes such a pretty ornament to place upon the table. Your sponge can be any size you like. One of the small sponges you buy for slate rubbers will do splendidly, and one of the grown-ups will tell you where you can buy two or three-pennyworth of grass seed. Soak the sponge in water so that it is quite wet and then place it on a saucer. Sprinkle the grass seed over it very thickly. It must be scattered so thickly that you can hardly see the sponge underneath. Then shut it up in the dark in your toy cupboard. Leave it there for a week, and when you look at it after that time you will see that each little seed has sent out a shoot about half an inch long. It will not look very much like grass because it will be quite white. But that is because it has been shut up in the dark. If you now place it on a table near the window the sunshine will quickly turn the little white shoots a bright green. Keep the sponge damp and the grass will grow to be about three or four inches high. "When it is so high it will look like a pretty green ball and is ready to have some flowers stuck in the holes. Choose your flowers with short thin stems and they will look so pretty, just as if they were growing out of the grass.