Getting my hands dirty

We (Mallory, Jessica, Victoria, Adrian, Sawini, Kathleen, and I, along with Ms. McBurney) had our first meeting of the gardening club after school today.  First off we got a stepladder from the greenhouse, grabbed a box of latex gloves from the chemistry lab, and then jumped right into the soil.  Standing in the garden, we found that it was even more disgusting than we had been able to tell from outside, and as you may recall, we had thought it was plenty disgusting already.  Rotting apple cores, over a dozen pens and pencils, and an opened and mushy chocolate bar were just some of the treasures we found half buried in the dirt.  It took as a good while to pick up all the trash and put it in the garbage bin that we had dragged there with us, and after we had finished, we got a rake and worked on getting rid of the many dead leaves that were everywhere.  The plants were in a really rough shape; the only one that was in semi-presentable condition was the fig tree, and there were also two other trees, a cactus, and a nondescript beat-up bush that may have in fact been a second cactus, all in desperate need of some TLC.  While we worked we named the pitiful-looking plants -- the two trees of the same type were Charlie Brown and Linus, the bush/cactus was Increase (after Increase Mather of the Salem Witch Trials fame and the nickname we have for our history teacher), the cactus was Shepard or Shep (Mallory named it this in honour of the protagonist of Mass Effect, although Kathleen misheard her and so it also goes by Shrek), and we named the fig tree Kim in honour of Ms. McBurney.  There were also some vine-like things in the back, but they remain unnamed.  While we raked (and seeing as we only had one rake, it was Adrian who did most of the raking), Victoria and I worked on pruning; her with Kim and I with Charlie Brown and Linus.  Charlie Brown was in really bad shape and I had to prune it down almost all the way to the ground, although while I was working on Linus, some of the others managed to salvage what was remaining and lift it up by securing it with a hair elastic, so it actually ended up not looking too bad.  After we had filled the compost bin with dead branches, we set to work on watering.  The entire bed was really dry and dusty; as soon as we had gotten the hose working and water finally splashed the dry soil and fig leaves, there was an intense and pleasing scent of petrichor.  We spent a good half hour watering from the main level of the school, showering water down on the bed below and coating the leaves of the fig tree to dust them off (as Ms. McBurney told us, dust on the leaves is bad for the plant as it inhibits photosynthesis), and afterwards we went down to the lower level to continue watering and clean the dirt splatters off the wall.  We learned how to put away the hose, Jess and Sawini took turns mopping the floor, and when everything was said and done, we had spent an hour and a half tending the plants.  It didn't feel that long at all -- it was tons of fun and we had visits from many of our teachers, fellow students, and other staff at the school who stopped to talk with us for a few moments (our biology teacher even brought over her new puppy!).  We also got a lot of things done and, as we were leaving, we looked down at the garden from the third floor.  The plants were so much greener now, and the soil was a rich, earthy black instead of a dusty brown.  It just looked infinitely healthier, and if we can make so much of a difference in just one session, I'm excited to see how much more beautiful the garden will be when we're done with it.  On Tuesday we will be staying after school to water the plants again and apply some fertilizer, so I have my fingers crossed that, after the weekend, the plants will still be looking perky and not have reverted to their previous state.