At the end of January we got an assignment to make a crystal garden. First step was to decide how would we like our garden to look like, what type of the garden we prefer and to make design and a model of our garden.
I decided to make a Japanese garden because I like how colorful they are, they always have a lot of water, ponds or streams and they usually have some small temples or shrines.
To make my Japanese garden, I used the following material:
- big cardboard shoe box
- a piece of green carpet for the grass
- broken ceramic tiles for the rocks and path
- small glass dishes for ponds
- glass tube to make a small river
- wooden sticks to make a shrine
- sponge to make trees
- plastic toy elements to make a bridge and bushes
- a pink cloth to make a water flower
- some artificial decorating flowers to make bamboo trees
- plastic cups as holders for my trees
It was fun creating the garden and I really liked how it looked. I hoped that the crystals will grow nicely and that my Japanese garden will be even nicer with them.
I also drew a map of my garden with the legend and I marked the spots where the crystal solutions will be applied.
When we brought our gardens to school, our teacher prepared different kinds of solutions for crystals, and we poured the solutions to the spots in our gardens where we wanted the crystals to grow. While we were doing this, I was not sure how much solution should I put and I was quite afraid that I may use too much and spill the solutions. I thought that the best place to put the solutions would be the sponge trees, because I hoped that the sponge will be easily soaked, that the solution will go through whole sponge trees and that the crystals will grow all over them. My idea was that less dense material will grow crystals better because the solution will penetrate them quickly. However, I decided to put some of the solutions in my glass ponds also, especially the one with the golden fish and the water flower.
So, I put salt solution on two spots, one with the sponge tree and the other in the cup with cloth bamboo trees.
Borax solution went in the glass pond with the water flower.
The sugar solution I poured into the cup with the other sponge tree.
It was Friday when I poured solutions and I could not wait till Monday, to see if the crystals started growing. However, unfortunately, I got sick and had to stay at home for two long weeks. I was so sad that I could not observe my crystal garden and the growth of the crystals. Thus, I was not able to take care of them or maybe to pour some more solutions, if the growth was not progressing. From time to time, I asked my teacher Mrs. Medenica or some of my friends to take a look at my garden and to let me know what is happening. They told me that the crystals have appeared, especially those of the salt solution.
At home, I imagined how beautiful my garden might look. I imagined that all the trees and bushes are full of shiny crystals of different colors. Finally, after the two weeks, I was able to see my Japanese crystal garden. And to be honest, I was rather surprised.
It’s nice, but it doesn’t look as I hoped it will. The crystals are there, but they are not too big and do not cover whole surface of the trees and ponds.
It is obvious that the salt solution was the most efficient and the salt crystals are the biggest. It is surprising that the crystals have formed at the bottom of the trees and around the glass and plastic holders much better that on the sponge and cloth trees. This is completely opposite to what I expected. It seems that my idea with the sponge was not so good. The crystals have grown in the little holes within the sponge and are not very visible on the outer surface. But they made the sponge become very hard. The solid holders made of glass and plastic, have been actually much better place for the crystals to grow. I like very much the salt crystals which were formed on the glass dish. It is totally covered with pinkish salt crystals. The crystal particles are very tiny, but there’s million of them. The same case is with the plastic holder where I put cloth bamboo trees. The trees don’t have crystals, but at their bottom, there are white salt crystals, which look like the snow covered the ground. That’s also nice.
The glass pond with the water flower, in which I put the borax solution, looks very nice, but not because there is a lot of borax crystals, but because the crystals are of a beautiful blue color and they also caused the flower to change its color from pink into many different shades of blue and violet. The solution made the cloth flower stiff and hard. The borax crystals can be seen on the walls of the glass dish which I used as a pond. But there are only few of the crystals, which is a pity, because if there were more of these beautiful blue crystals, it would have looked exactly like a clean, deep water in the pond. I like these borax crystals the most, because their particles are larger and they are also shiny.
The least successful part of my crystal garden is the sponge tree where I poured sugar solution. It is probably again because of the wrong choice of the material I used for the tree. Sponge soaked all the solution and crystals grew only at the bottom of the tree. Only few of the crystals managed to form in the upper part of the tree. I think that these sugar crystals would have been also nice, if it were more of them. They are also shiny and have nice, green color.
Well, what should I conclude about this project? First of all, I enjoyed doing it and this is why I am surprised that it did not turn out to be more successful. I hoped that the crystals will be bigger and better distributed. There are several possible reasons for this.
· choice of materials I used
· not enough solutions put on the spots where I wanted the crystals to grow
· my absence during their growth, so I was not able to add more solutions
However, I still like my crystal garden and I am happy that at least some of the crystals were formed.
