Autumn Flower Fairy Nature Study: Bind Weed

Welcome to our first installment of studying nature with a bit of help from the Flower fairies.  The flower we focused on last week was Bind Weed.  ‘Bind Weed?’  I hear you cry.  ‘Why on earth would you choose to study a weed?’  Well, it is a very pretty weed, and more importantly my two younger ones seemed drawn to it, picking the flowers each time they spotted some.

See?  Pretty!

The Bind Weed Fairy Poem

First things first, we found the Bind Weed Fairy’s page and read out the poem, whilst studying the fairy:From the poem we can learn that Bind Weed have stems which twine around other stems:

Their buds are furled and their flowers like bells:

Their flowers last only one day.  The photo shows a flower on a Wednesday afternoon and the same flower on Friday:

And they are found by the wayside.

The Bind Weed

Bind Weed’s Latin name is Convolvulus Cneorum.  It is a prolific grower, flourishing in both sun and shade.  It is so called because of its tendency to creep around other plants, fences and basically any other nearby thing.  A perennial, it has a long flowering season, although each individual flower lives for only a short time.  The flowers blossom is succession and remain open all day long.  Although it is generally thought of as a weed and not something to be cultivated in one’s garden, it is absolutely beautiful with delicate, bell shaped flowers and pointed, dark green leaves.

Drawing and Studying a Bind Weed Plant

The first thing we did was study the structure of Bind Weed.  The girls drew and coloured in an example of the weed which we had collected from our walk in the woodland:

Afterwards we retrieved the science bits from the cupboard and studied it closer up, cutting it up and looking at its structure:

Making the Bind Weed Fairy

Later on in the week, A and B gathered some more Bind Weed and we set about making a bind weed fairy based on the one in the book:

We gathered together three Bind Weed flowers and a wooden clothes peg.  A pulled the sepal off one of them.  This sepal would become the fairies hat, the large petal would be the fairy’s dress and the remaining petal would become the fairies wings:

A7 placed the largest flower over the clothes peg to create a head, body and dress.  I drew a face on the head and the sepal was placed over the top of the head as a hat:

Using another petal, A tore it in half and pinned the half petals behind the back of the petal dress:

This was such a great activity and probably one we will be repeating often.  The fairy, of course, doesn’t last, but the photos will!

Designing our own fairy

Sunday Night L12 and I spent some time together sketching some Bind Weed from a printed photo, spending much time familiarising ourselves with the details of the flower, stem and leaves:

Using the knowledge we now had, the two of us designed our very own Bind Weed Flower Fairy:

After which we made a fairy using the kit I had bought.  I really like this kit because there is a lot of freedom with regards to the design of each fairy.  This meant I was able to make a little Bind Weed fairy based on my drawings.  These fairies will be collected and glued onto the bedroom wall of my youngest two, which is decorated in a woodland theme.  Here is my fairy:

Isn’t it cute?

Next Week

Next week we will be focusing on the Michaelmas Daisy:

Further Inspiration

Linking up: Phyllis at All Things Beautiful