Mentoring

When I moved from part time to full time teaching in January I also got space in an on campus office.  I seriously lucked out with one of my office mates, An Historian.  She and I get along like, well, like friends.  

An Historian has never been much of a gardener but after listening to me talk she is interested in trying her hand.  I went over to her house yesterday to evaluate things and found some poison ivy, taught her how to use a hoe to get rid of seedling-weeds, and planned out a massive shrubbery that she'll never put in but that would be my dream for her massive side yard.

Somehow I've become A Mentor.

I gave her a list of must-have tools and agreed to go with her to pick out plants to go around existing plantings, then show her how to plant them.  Not to mention giving advice on putting in a new bed.  Most important I gave her a list of really good web sites.  Sites like the Missouri Botanical Garden and Brent and Becky's bulbs (she loves tulips).  Now I'm working on a list of the others sites that might be helpful and on some good blogs to get her hooked.  

I will drag An Historian out of the past and into the garden.  And I will teach her the ways that I have found work best.  And she will join me on the Green Side of The Force.  Wait, I mean she'll learn to like gardening.

What a feeling of power responsibility.

Really.  I don't have a plan for world domination involving houseplants reprogramming DVRs.  And I certainly am not recruiting an Army of Dragonflies.  

I'm not.  

Really.

Here's a pretty picture to distract you.