Right, he needed his gloves, seeds and his jar. Ofim had sent away for various seeds to for this project. He needed an ecosystem, yes? What was better than an estuary? Well, he thought it would be cool, anyway.

He had to enlarge the jar, okay. Sounded easy enough. The first year put on his gloves, pointed his wand at the jar and said "engorgio". Cool, it seemed to work, the jar was getting bigger.

Sarah had written out her name about 5 times already each time with a different style and was so involved that she was in her own island. It her wa while to notice that a person was checking what she was doing, in fact by the time she sensed West's presence he was grinning. Sarah then grinned back, berating for self for not smiling as she had working - She just pulled funny faces when she was involved in her things.
She then went back to work. She tried to shade in vases lie the ones she saw in front of her, yet it did not work so well as quill and ink work differently to pencil. Just then, the teacher came in and Sarah put her things away

Oh right, her spores,bulbs and seeds. It was good thing Sarah made sure to read the whole notice on the board. She reached into her satchel and brought out a collection of things. She was doing the ecossystem of the area that Hogwarts is in, which was of course Scotland. She had collected a random assortment of seeds, spores and bulbs from the areas around Hogwarts,, in fact she wondered what was going to grow from it as she had. She had the things for primroses, bluebells and violetsand and of someother plants she could not identify.
Now that she had her seeds she put on her gloves.. What was next.

Sarah had not brought a jar, she had used a bag to transport her things. So she guessed that she did need a jar. She peered under the table for the perfect jar, and then realizing how indecisive she was being she took the closest one. Placing it on her desk she used a quick cleaning spell, just in case, not doubting her professor's cleaniess yet perhaps dust had gone in and such.
Now she needed to enlarge it. To what size? She decided to do what she saw fit in the end and made it a size similar to her professor's. She can always make it bigger later. "engorgio" she cast with her wand enlarging her jar. Now that was done...
She eyed her things splayed out in front of her, was she enroaching on other's personal space? She had no qualms about people being in her space as for Sarah a desire for personal space arond her acting like a buffer zone between people was non-existant. Yet would other's mind. "West, I would hate to bother you by enroaching into your personal space if you are bothered by people doing so, if you are bothered just let me know and I will somehow think of a way to make myself use less space."
. Now hopefully he would be honest and let Sarah know as Sarah hated to burden someone.

They were already starting with a spell! Professor Bentley sure knew how to make things interesting! Sophie LOVED that lesson already.

Since she hadn't brought her own jar, the badger got one from under the table where the professor had indicated and sat up straight again, pulling out her wand. "Engorgio!" Sophie said firmly as she pointed her wand to the jar, watching it get larger. She quickly glanced to the jar professor Bentley had enlarger herself and tried to make her own as big as the professor's.

When the jar was big enough, she lifted the spell and rested her hands on the table in front of her, by the sides of the enlarged jar. Heeeeeeeeheeeee! Cool!

Oops.

She didn't have a jar. No biggie though, right? The third year hummed happily to herself and made her way over to the table where the jars sat, a skip in her step. She ran her fingers over each of the jars, trying to pick the perfect one. AH-HAH. This one was relatively large so Blue plucked it up and cradled it and carefully picked her way back to her spot, not wanting to drop it and break it.

The third year set the jar on the table and pulled her wand out. Okay. Deep breaths because she still got butterflies in her tummy whenever she did magic. "Engorgio!" The jar expanded a tiny bit, but not nearly enough.

Grrrrr.

"ENGORGIO."

The jar doubled in size and the Ravenclaw beamed with pride.

A jar! O___o She knew she'd forgotten something. The blonde frowned slightly as she remembered the jar she'd placed on top of her trunk so she wouldn't forget it. ...A lot of good that did. With a sigh she bent down and picked one from under the table, setting it down carefully in front of her. Now she'd need to enlarge it, yeah? Hmmm.

The blonde badger eyed the jar and pointed her wand at it, focusing on what she wanted to happen. Then with a small smile said, "Engorgio!"

O___O

Merlin! The jar had gotten quite big and the blonde eyed it curiously. How cool! And the fifteen year old then looked around at her friends and classmates, ready in case anyone needed some help.

Okay, that was slightly different from what they had done at her muggle school. But this was a magic school, so it wasn't that surprising. She did look at her marigold seeds and wish that she had gotten something a little bigger, though. Like daffodils or something. And maybe a jar with a more interesting shape. But she had been worried about the jar breaking if she had asked either her parents or her aunt to send one so.....

Anyway, she grabbed a jar from under the table and aimed her wand at it. "Engorgio." The jar grew to the size of two large pickle jars. Okay, so maybe the marigolds were still a good idea.

Mo took his time to unpack the seeds and things from his satchel, setting them neatly on his workstation. He'd collected some of them previously, when he'd been home for Christmas, and his sister Fee had happily gone out onto the Fell to collect more when the assignment had been posted on the noticeboard.

He was going to make fell-in-a-bottle.

"D'you want some of mine? It'll look just like home." Mo leaned over to ask West as he snugged on his gloves and retrieved one of the bell jars from beneath the workstation. It was actually pretty good sized, but to let the heather grow properly, it would need to be a little taller.

But just a little. That would take some pretty good intent. "Engorgio," Mo pointed his wand and screwed up his face, hoping to inch the jar to the size he wanted instead of suddenly finding himself with a small swimming pool. It grew only slightly, and Mo breathed a sigh of relief.

Lex just continued smiling up at the nice woman. That's what she did you know, she smiled at people who were nice to her. That's how everyone was, right? Most likely, and if not she would pretend so.

"Work doesn't sound all that fun, just grab a jar and play in dirt too, you might as well while you're here." She said with a shrug. Seemed legit. What better way to be a part of Herbology than to get with the practical approach. After saying that, she turned on her stool, while getting on her gloves, so she could have a better look at the Professor who was talking about enlarging the jars and stuff.

That all reminded her...she didn't actually have a jar. Looks like she'd be fishing one out from under the table.

After she did that she drew out her wand and get set to make it bigger. "Engorgio..." She let herself get used to the incantation before even attempting to cast because she didn't feel like asking for her. Nope. She'd rather just get it right on her own.

When she thought she'd muttered it to herself enough times she looked around the area at everyone else casting. Wand movement was important and when it came to this spell she didn't have any idea what it was. Lex locked her eyes on each castor until she was positive she had that down too. Right. Time for her to give it a shot. She took a moment to concentrate. "Engorgio."

Hey, lookit, it worked!

Sierra moved her own jar in front of her. Yes, she'd actually taken the time to gather her materials. *BEAM* With the jar now directly in front of her, Sierra flicked her wand out and gripped it tightly. She adjusted the position of the wand, so that it now pointed toward the jar. "Engorgio!" she said. The jar expanded to what was hopefully the right size for the lesson. Sierra hadn't heard the professor say.

Not much for her to do now but just wait. She looked around the room, wondering if anyone needed help with the charm. It was the least she could do seeing as she was sort of letting her grades fall due to focusing so much on Quidditch.

Zhenya quickly pulled out her gloves from her bag and put them on. Well, good thing she didn't forget to do that. Now, jars. She decided not to bring her own jar, mostly because she didn't know what sort of jar she wanted to use. And what would be better than having a peek at all the other jars to see which one suited her most? She looked through the jars Professor Bentley had under the table and pulled one out. It was nice and tall, and square, with a round top. That was perfect! Now... to enlarge it.

She pulled her wand out and set the jar on the table right in front of her. She pointed her wand at the jar and cleared her throat, "Engorgio," she said clearly, and she watched with a small satisfied smile on her face as her jar enlarged. It looked like an almost perfect sized, large cube. This was just what she wanted!

It was time to move onto the practical end of the project. Of all of the things that they were starting off with she was so glad that Bentley was starting with something relatively easy. Engorgio was a spell that she could do very easily. At least she was a seventh year who SHOULD have been able to perform the spell. She had done it enough times.

ANYWAY, she pulled out her wand and grabbed one of the jars underneath the table and said, "Engorgio." Like magic, heh, it grew in size to the exact proportions that Bentley wanted. Awesome. Let's go.

Well West had practiced enlarging and reducing stuff a bunch with Dylan so this was easy enough. He grabbed one of the jars, pointed at it with his wand and clearly said, "Engorgio!" to make it bigggggger. Eh. That was big enough right? He eyed it and then eyed the jars of those nearby. It'd do.

West had made a mental note to ask Sarah about art stuff later, and then she spoke and he turned his attention to her, blinking a few times at her question. Bothered. Hehee. That word. He glanced toward Bliss and then back at Sarah with a smile.

"Oh. Nah. Its fine. If you encroached I'd just, y'know, unencroach your stuff, and move it out of my way." Pretty much. She'd know about it if he had a problem. He didn't have one.

Some of Mo's whats? Oh seeds and stuff? "Sure, I guess. I don't even know what kinds of seeds most of these are." Assorted seeds. Though he'd do alright identifying them once he made the effort to.

That made Althea smile. Children had a good outlook. Sometimes more simple than truth but all the same.

"I'll see if I can get away with it after I've done what I have to do." She looked back at Seren again, watching, but with a reasonably pleasant and contented smile on her face.

Peyton stared at Professor Bentley, seeming as if she was paying the utmost attention. In reality, she was fantasizing about what she was going to have for dinner and what Quidditch magazine she'd read while eating her delicious meal.

She snapped out of her thoughts when she realized the professor had paused. Huh? Oh, right they had to put their gloves on. Peyton only knew that because that's what her classmates were doing. She put hers on and waited for further instructions. She didn't want to risk losing track of what was going on, but...she was hungry.

On the plus side, she wasn't sleepy. That's a good thing, right? RIGHT!

When it was time to work with the jars, Peyton got one of the jars provided. She didn't have her own. Peyton didn't normally carry pickling jars in her trunk and she had forgotten to Owl her dad to send her one. She then proceeded by withdrawing her wand and tapping the pickling jar with it.

Peyton stared at it. How big was it supposed to be? Huge like Cinderella's pumpkin carriage or like the ones the professor had on the table? Peyton shrugged and pointed her wand at the pickling jar. "Engorgio!" she chirped, and watched the jar grow and grow.

There! :3

She glanced at her peers around her, more specifically at Sierra's 'cause she was her Prefect. Her pickling jar was almost as big as her Prefect's, that should be good, yeah? Yeah.

Right. Getting a one word response from Spike caused her shoulders to do a quick shrug. Typically, she duly took it as a cork stopper to their conversation about the jars, along with the terrariums inside each. This was another loophole. They used to be in mighty spirits whenever talking about plants and animals with each other yet lately, her co-Prefect had by far been...missing in action.

Where he was spending his free time, she didn't know because again, he wasn't telling her anything. Not that she was mad, disappointed maybe but not mad. She only wished she wasn't left hanging all clueless like this.

"Yeah, I'm sure she already has a spot." Well, at least there was still something they could agree on. For the tiniest of reason, this made her think that it would only take a little more while before Spike personally pours out the beans.

Reverting back her attention to Professor Bentley, she nodded after the next instruction was given. Enlarging their jars. That wasn't hard, but she first needed a jar. Following pursuit of her co-Prefect, for he too was taking a jar, she walked over to the table and carefully picked her own before resuming her seat from earlier.

Placing it on the table's surface, she shot Spike a furtive glance and then unholstered her wand. Engorgio, hmm. It was one of the spells the Professor made them practice over the course of time between the first lesson and this. Flashes of the ice rink mission appeared on her mind and she grinned absently. "Engorgio!" At once, the glass jar grew in size until it was likely enough for easy working and to be filled with plants.

Things were running smoothly, so smoothly in fact, that she felt as though any intervention on her part would only serve as a distraction. So she wouldn't distract them, nope.

Once she was certain that everyone had their jars and had enlarged them, she returned to her position at the head of the table, ready to carry on.
"Great! So now that our vessels are at size that we can work with, we need to establish its foundation." And this is where things would get tricky. "Soils... vary just biomes vary, so it's important to consider which biome you have selected to create and which soil type will meet its needs."

"There are five primary types of soil. These are ... sandy, silty, clay, peaty and loam," she announced, in a clear and projected voice. "Sandy soils drain rapidly, so this suits drought resistant plants and plants which do not require copious amounts of nutrients..."

"Silty soil retains moisture, drains poorly and is cold and compact... or poorly aerated."

"Clay also retains moisture and is composed of smaller particles. It's sticky when wet, but smooth when dry. It's rich in nutrients and is cold when wet but warm when dry... also becomes hard and compact when dry."

"Peaty soil is high in organic matter which makes it very nutritious. Though it's not very good when heavily saturated, once drained it's a fantastic growing medium... though when dry it can become a fire hazard. Peaty soils have the ability to hold water in dryer months, thus protecting the roots."

"Loam soil... is a herbologists best friend. When unsure, loam is a suitable option as it's a balance of silt, sand and clay. It's dark in colour and is soft, dry and crumbly to the touch. It retains water and plant food but it drains well, and air moves freely between soil particles down to the roots."
It was the King of soils... in her opinion. Great for novice herbologists who had no idea what they were doing.

"Based on those characteristics, your first task is to identify which soil will best suit your biome. Once you have decided, come up here, grab a bucket and collect your soil." She indicated to the back wall just metres behind her where five piles of soil sat, labelled, with a tower of red buckets beside them.

"If you're unsure, raise your hand, and I'll assist you."

A part of her wondered if any of the students did research into their biome of choice, having had to select one to collect seed, bulb or spore material.

OOC: The lesson will move on in approximately 11 hours.

So, select the right type of soil? Um yeah, Sky had no idea. Well okay, she did one idea. No way was she picking the peaty soil! Fire didn't sound so great. And she knew that marigolds weren't very drought resistant, so sandy was out. Which brought it down to being between the silty and the loam. Hmm... loam sounds the best, so let's go with that.

With that decision made, she walked up to the bag of loamy soil, grabbed one of the buckets, and started collecting soil. Once she had the bucket about half full, she carried it back to her seat and waited for the next set of instructions.

Jory knew instantly which type of soil he would need. He had chosen a desert ecosystem after some research and so the soil there was obviously sand. Yup, sand was obviously the best for cactus plants among the others.

The boy got up and headed towards the wall behind Professor Bentley. He took one of the red buckets and headed over to the sand pile. After setting down the bucket, he began to load it with sand.

"Might not need all, right?'' he wondered eyeing the three quarter filled bucket. If any was left over he would just unload it back in the pile. Jory carefully lifted it and went back to his seat.

Alyssa listened as the Professor explained to them about the types of soil she had with her and which one best suited the types of plants used. She quickly noted them down in her journal.



Alyssa put down her quill when she finished writing and looked at the seeds she had with her. Since she only had one very large jar with her, she decided that she would pick the Salal seed to plant first. Before picking the seeds for this class, Alyssa had done some research regarding their uses and what their contribution was to the ecosystem. She remembered reading that the Salal seed needed a soil range of some sand to some clay.

Alyssa studied her journal notes again. She had a choice of sandy and clay, but she wasn't sure whether she was allowed to mix both of them together or to use loam which had a balance of sand and clay. But loam soil also had silt in it which wasn't what her seed needed. Alyssa didn't want to make a mistake by using the wrong soil, so even though she hated to admit that she was unsure, she raised her hand and asked.

"Professor Bentley, I'm going to be planting Salal seeds. My research said that it required a soil range of some sand to some clay. Am I allowed to mix both the sand and clay soil that you have for us, or do I use loam? I know that it has a balance of sand, clay and silt. I need sand and clay but not silt. Does it make a lot of difference?"

Alyssa hoped that the Professor didn't think that she had just grabbed a bunch of seeds without doing her research first.

Ofim had forgotten that there were so many types of soil. Thankfully he had done his research. He'd sent off for the seeds and had done as much reading as he could. Not that Hogwarts held a lot of information on estuaries. He'd ordered some books from some muggle shop. He'd read that the base for the mangrove, yes that's right, a mangrove tree was clay. He knew that the mangrove would grow waaaay tooooo big for this jar but wasn't there like a spell or something that could stunt its growth? He had seeds for other things as well. He'd gotten seeds for cat-tails and sea grass.

Not only was he going to need soil for this project, he was going to need WATER. Salty water. Where was he going to find that? He'd address that later, he supposed.

His first task was to get the soil, yes? He'd decided that he was going to get two buckets. He needed two different types of soil, okay? First bucket he was going to fill up with the loam. That was going to be his base. Trust him, he had a plan for this "project". The second type of soil he was going to use was the silty soil. The soil wasn't going to be level in this jar. Nope, it was going to have character. After putting the amount of soil he needed into his buckets he carried them back to his stool. Okay, now was it time to get dirty?

She'd already had her seeds setting out next to her so she just sort of waited while everyone else got theirs. She also knew that her cactus was going to be fairly short, so she didn't need to enlarge her terrarium all the much. She gave it a small increase with the spell though, just in case. "Engorgio," she whispered and watched the jar grow slightly taller and wider. That ought to be enough.

As for soil choices, she'd already known what to use. Since she'd thought about it beforehand, knowing she probably wouldn't be very good at watering the little plants very often, she'd chosen seeds that would do well in drought and desert like areas. She walked up to the buckets of soil confidently and collected some sand to bring back to the table and use for her terrarium. But knowing the soil isn't really going to help me know how to take care of the poor plants. I'm not sure I should even be allowed to own plants actually... She hoped she'd get the hang of caring for plants though. I'll feel really bad if they die, she thought, doubtful in her gardening skills.

Laura looked at the Jar and smiled, well the first part was the easy part, she took out her wand and then she looked at the Jar and tried to figure out how big she wanted it. "Engorgio." Laura whispered, nothing happened, well that was strange.

Laura looked at the jar, what was wrong, she was sure her spells normally worked and then she giggled she hadn't done the wand movement, oh right, she looked at the jar and did the wand movement and then she. "Engor.." Laura suddenly sneezed. "ACH___OOOO" Laura sighed as she finished the sentence "gio" Laura was really shocked when she saw the Jar had grown just a bit to big for her to reach it wasn't really that bad. "Eh Professor is my jar supposed to be this tall?" Laura sighed, why did it always happen to her.

Alice leaned down and tugged a jar out from under the table, pulling it up and setting it in front of her. Enlarge it, right? Thankfully, she wouldn't have too much trouble with that charm, since she'd learned it during the last Herbology assignment while chopping off teddy bear heads with Melanie. "Engorgio." AND IT ENLARGED. Voila. Maybe this lesson would end up being slightly easier than the first? Maybe. Just maybe.

Once Bentley started chattering on about biomes and soil, though, she deducted that she'd spend most of this lesson being lost, too. Still, she attempted to follow along as the professor explained a bunch of things about why they had to choose the right type of soil and how to tell which one they needed and.. and.. she was still lost, okay?

She DID remember that those things in her bag were cactus seeds. And those needed sandy soil, right? Because they were part of a desert ecosystem. So she grabbed one of the pretty red buckets and filled it with a heaps of the stuff. When she picked it up, though, it immediately dragged her back down again. That stuff was HEAVY. She didn't bother picking it up once more, though. Alice just pushed it back to her seat, letting it remain on the ground. This was a job her puny arms couldn't handle, unfortunately.

When Mo considered the type of soil he was looking for, he was sort of stumped. The soils at home had very good drainage, and he'd want to be sure he didn't end up soaking his root system and killing the plants he wanted to grow. Really, the peaty soil was closest to home, but he wasn't sure if it would be acidic enough.

Mo tapped his fingers against the desk before deciding to give it a shot. The worst that could happen is that his soil would be a little too dry, but it was unlikely that he'd manage to somehow set the whole biome on fire. He settled his jar back on the counter so it wouldn't fall before taking his bucket to retrieve the peaty soil. It sort of smelled like home too.

Plonk. Someone had taken a seat next her. Renesmee looked up to see it was one of her badger players. She gave Kaiden a smile and a nod. The fifth year didn't mind that Kaiden was seated beside her but she always had the feel he had a crush on her or something. Like the way he went on about her face, not that it wasn't cute, it just well... Her thoughts were interrupted by Bentley walking inside the classroom and so she never managed to even return the boys greeting.

Seeds. Protea seeds, which she had especially obtained through owl. Yeah she had a few of those. She plonked them before her and then placed her gloves onto her hands. Hoping Kaiden was doing the same. Next thing she did was head towards the jars and picked one up, she returned to her desk and took her wand out. "Engorgio." she uttered and cast the enlargement spell onto her jar. The thing grew almost instantly. It stopped once it was a fairly big size, which Nessie was pleased with.

Did any of the kiddos need help? Cause she was willing to help them with that spell. It was a simple one for a sixth year.

Soil. She needed one that drained rather quickly for her Protea seeds. These were the kind of plants that coped without much nutrients. Sandy soils, that's what sounded best or so she hoped. The red head once again left her seat and returned, this time with sandy soil filled inside a bucket.

Yeah she was all good for now and pleased nothing involved mud. This sandy stuff wasn't too bad.

Now that was something she had forgotten to ask Isabel about. A jar. Luckily, she had already noticed that Professor Bentley had collected quite a few for them to pick from, but Kendall had the feeling that her best friend could have sent her something that was even more awesome. Even if it was just better because it also would have been from Galway. She could make something just as good with the jars here, though, so she got up from her stool and went over to pick from what was left after several others had done the same. It took her a few more seconds than it probably should have, but she still wanted something perfect. Finally, she returned to her seat and set the jar next to her container of seeds. Now to enlarge it, which only brought back her question about if they would have to miniaturize some of their flowers. Maybe that would happen if they made their jar back normal size. Everything inside would shrink along with it. She still held back from asking, however, as she took her wand out and pointed it carefully at the jar. She didn’t want to accidentally enlarge her seeds, in case that would harm them. “Engorgio,” she cast, practically holding her breath until she saw the jar enlarge to at least twice its size while the seed container stayed perfectly safe. The other question might get answered anyway, after all.

She looked back over at the professor as she started speaking again. Soil types. Her eyes widened a little as she glanced at her seeds. She knew what biome they came from, but the list of soil types to choose from was what confused her. First off, there were a couple different options considering the plants she had, and second, she just honestly wasn’t certain which one was the best idea. Especially since she sort of had decided she’d have to sort of figure out halfway in between, and none of the descriptions seemed like they fit that idea. Therefore, instead of just guessing and ending up completely killing her precious piece of Galway, she raised her hand. “Professor Bentley? What if we’re just not sure which type of soil we should use? My plants are all from Ireland, and lots of them are coastal or from the Burren,” she said. Hopefully that would make sense to the professor, because otherwise she wasn’t sure how to explain it. “If we need something in between, like between limestone, dunes and grassland, what would that be?” She was desperately hoping that there would be some sort of answer, because otherwise she was going to have to borrow an owl again to ask for soil from home.