Dear Bulb Buddies

I can't believe that we are now in our final week of recording!

This is the 20th week of record keeping - so congratulations to every school scientist that has been out in the rain, snow and finally this amazing warm March weather to keep records.

Top temperature recorded in schools = 25C last friday at Glyncollen Primary School, near Swansea.

I really hope you have enjoyed the experiment and learned about keeping plants, your local weather and climate change. Thanks so much for helping me with this important investigation. I will be awarding all who have kept records with Super Scientist Certificates - which will be sent to your school by the 14th of May together with a summary of the investigation results.

Please make sure all your records are sent in this Friday together with any drawing competition entries you may have. Please see pictures of pupils drawing their flowers in the sunshine!

If your flower hasn't flowered yet but it does have a bud then please take it home over Easter and jot down the date it opens. If sadly, your flower hasn't opened and doesn't have a bud then please send a in a no flower record and you will of course still recive your certificate.

Record breaking weather!

A temperature of 22.8C (73F), the highest in the UK, was recorded at Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire, beating the previous March record of 22.2C in 1965.

Porthmadog in Gwynedd was the warmest place in the UK on Saturday with temperatures soaring to 22.2 Celsius, 72 Fahrenheit. That's about 12 degrees above the seasonal average and warmer than Malaga in Spain!

I look forward to sending you your certificates and seedlings in May. Enjoy your Easter break, many, many thanks. Professor Plant.

P.s I will be blogging next week too for schools that haven't yet broken-up for the holidays - so please send in any comments.

Your comments:

Woodplumpton Primary: Two of our crocus bulbs did not open. Eleven of our daffodils have not opened yet. We are going to take them home today but will watch them and record the date and height if they do flower and send the results after Easter. Our mystery bulb opened! It's a yellow tulip! Ans: many thanks Woodplumpton!

Struan: Unfortunately someone snapped my flower. Ans: Very sorry to hear this Struan - and thanks for sending in your record.

Glyncollen Primary: We have had a lovely,mild week and today it is very warm. Our plants are growing well. We will be sorry to finish this investigation next week but we are going to tell Yr.3 all about it ready for next year. Thank you very much. Ans: Thank you Glyncollen I look forward to sending you your certificates and working with your school next year.

Really warming up know, and children upset to hear about the hosepipe ban, as we have little rain water in our water butts! Gardening Club, Stanford in the Vale Primary School. Ans: Yes we haven't had much rain this year. Hope you get some rain to fill up the water butts.

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I met Coedybryn school today who had a lovely sunny day to go out sketching and then came back to create these fantastic buildings! they are of the church and Llwyn yr eos farm... but am sure you already knew that.

Hello!

Just a few pictures of models of buildings made by Cardiff Muslim Primary School when they came here the other week.

They are models of the cockpit and the post office, and are pretty splendid too! look at that thatch!

Many of the plants around the village are growing now, which is good news for me as i can collect some for medicines ,dyes and food!

But unfortunatly i have lost one of my roundhouses moel y gerddu is closed , the roof is slightly damaged to many harsh winters and wasp nests.

what will happen to the house in the future?

This is the first official week of spring. It's called spring equinox, which means that the day and night are almost the same length.

At the North Pole, the polar bears are celebrating the first appearance of the sun in six months but at the South Pole the penguins are preparing for six months of darkness. I picked this up on Derek the Weatherman's blog - what a fascinating thought.

In the UK, school scientists are mapping spring by posting results to show when there spring flowers open - as part of a long term study into climate change. Despite the initial early start to the spring I think our results will show that our flowers have come late this year, because of the late frost. The results are flying in this week - 203 sent in so far! Many schools are still waiting for their flowers - hopefully they will come soon.

Please take a look at the beautiful pictures sent in by Fulwood & Cadley School and Brynhyfryd Junior.

What is the mystery bulb?

Ysgol Porth Y Felin: On Monday it was very rainy and we think the mystery bulb is
a tulip. Glyncollen Primary School: We found out that one of our mystery bulbs is a tulip. Our daffodils and crocus look lovely in the Spring sunshine. Ans: Both schools are correct - Welldone!

Your comments:

Fulwod and Cadley reported: All our crocuses have flowered now but 15 of our daffodil plants have no buds at all. We think, that they are unlikely to produce any buds now, we would be grateful if you would let us know what you think?

Ans: I agree, if there are no buds by now, sadly it is unlikey that they will flower. This has happenend to a few of mine too. The reason this has happened is unclear. When a daffodil doesn't make a flower gardeners say that the plant has gone 'blind' - as it has no flower head. This normally happens if the bulb has been flowering for a few years or if there is too much nitrogen in the soil - but this doesn't normally happen with a new bulb. This seems to have happened to my bulbs that started to grow really early - end of Decemeber early Jan. They grew tall then we had the frost and they seemed to stop growing taller - until much later. The hours of sunshine is a big factor with dafs - so we will have to look at all the records to see if there are any trends before we can make any conclusions.

Channelkirk Primary School asked: We measured the height of our plants in cm, but the site has it as mm. Should we measure the flower only? Ans: No, please measure the height in mm if possible or simply convert to mm. Thanks Prof.P

Ysgol Bro Cinmeirch: Tyfodd ccenin pedr mae o yn 215mm a dyfodd y grocws 35mm. Tyfodd cenin pedr arall 85mm a tyfodd y crocws 120 mm. Ateb: Sylwadau gwych!

Ysgol Nant Y Coed: I think that it's great to learn about rainfall and how it works their magic with flowers It's fun experementing on this and it's a experience for children to learn to measure. Ans: Glad you enjoyed - thanks for helping me. Prof. P

Ysgol Nant Y Coed: It was a very good experiment! Ysgol Nant Y Coed. I like the experiment!!!!!!!!!!! Ans: Glad you enjoyed the experiment! Thanks so much for helping me with this. Prof. P

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