The LEGO nursery grows: two new green-thumbed LEGO Botanical sets!
The LEGO nursery grows
Inaugurated in January 2021, with the arrival of summer of the same year, the new line of LEGO Botanical sets grows thanks to a new plant, namely the LEGO Creator Expert # 10289 Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae) set.The arrival of 2022 instead brings with it a new addition to our brick flower bouquet: the beautiful LEGO Creator # 40524 "Sunflowers" set gives a touch of color to the gray winter. Let's see them in detail.
LEGO Creator Expert # 10289 “Bird of Paradise”
| ); } The construction of the set begins with the buildable vase, which once completed turns out to be surprisingly solid. A whole series of specific LEGO elements are used to create an octagonal shape with STUD (the "buttons" that are normally found on the upper face of the bricks) on the sides (i.e. towards the outside) which will then be used to fit the air sections of the external surface of the vessel itself. Near the base of the vase, the Designer left a visible stud strip that reproduces the hypothetical line left in the paint before the vase was glazed. Once built, the pot weighs around 600g, which helps prevent the plant from falling or overturning once construction is complete. Once the pot is finished, the real plant is built. It starts with the stems and then moves on to the leaves, using almost exclusively LEGO Technic elements. Once completed, the stems complete with leaves can be inserted into the vase in any position, thanks to the Technic hole system made available by Designer when designing the top of the vase. The best part of the construction is left for last: the flower heads. There is nothing particularly complicated in their construction, but you can immediately see how this simplicity was the result of a design ingenuity on the part of the Designer. The end result is really beautiful and refined, just like the real plant is. The upper part of the vase, having to make available to those who build a series of holes so that the arrangement of the stems could be free, may seem a bit unsightly: the Designer, however, has also thought of this. In fact, the set includes an envelope containing several dozen 1 × 1 plate rounds in "earth" color, thanks to which it is possible to cover the holes of the LEGO Technic bricks and at the same time simulate the soil in which the real plant would be inserted.
LEGO Creator # 40524“ Sunflowers ”set
If you want to know more about the sets of the LEGO Botanical line, in this article you will find information and details on the first four sets of this very particular theme.
In search of a fairy potion with my two favorite tulips
The wind was cold, but I didn’t wear a jacket when Lee and I went to a family celebration for our grandson, Henry, newly 13 and officially entering life as a teenager.
After a pizza dinner and birthday presents for their brother, our granddaughters, Kate and Sammy, asked me to go outside with them and look for ingredients to make a fairy potion. Before the girls were born, my grandsons and I turned neighborhood walks into adventures. When Josh, 15, and Henry were little guys, our quests involved finding clues to the whereabouts of five ninja warriors from the Lego Ninjago universe. The boys are teenagers now and have moved on from ninja territory to world-building games and graphic design programs on their computers, but they remember our trips to an imaginary world.
I walk with Kate and Sammy now. Usually, we go looking for cats and owls, and sometimes we outrun bad guys and monsters. On the evening of Henry’s birthday, I borrowed my daughter’s jacket and made sure the girls zipped up their coats before we set off on Project Fairy Potion. We needed flower petals, 9-year-old Kate said, so the potion could transform us into something from nature.
“I want to be an animal, a kitty,” 5-year-old Sammy said.
Kate frowned. “Not animals. It has to be something from nature.”
I understood what Kate meant. She has an innate connection with animals but is also drawn to the green natural world of plants and flowers. Sammy adjusted her thinking.
“Nature — like insects? Bugs?” She loves bugs, and I pictured a giant, hairy spider emerging from the fairy potion.
“What about butterflies?” I asked.
Sammy brightened. “I have butterfly wings in my closet and they’re all sparkly.” Her big sister scowled. “Fake wings with sparkles aren’t from nature.” I sensed trouble in fairyland.
The fairies love flowers, I told my favorite potion makers. We could be tulips. They grow in so many colors, and we could each choose our favorite color.
“Rainbow,” Sammy said.
Kate looked up at me. “Are there rainbow tulips?”
I thought of the Rembrandt tulips in my garden, flushed with vivid base tones and splashes of mixed shades. Sammy could definitely be a rainbow tulip, I said. Kate decided to be a feathery pink parrot tulip, and I would be a dark red Rococo tulip.
We’d circled the block by then, and the girls had collected the ingredients to make their magic: petals from blue starflowers and white snowdrops, a small tuft of grass, and several spring-green leaves. I was glad to see the path to the kitchen door. Even though I wore my daughter’s warm jacket, I could feel the wind’s chill, and the girls didn’t protest too much when I herded them inside. After all, frozen flower petals would ruin the potion. The next time I see my magical granddaughters, I will hug two beautiful tulips.
Although the sky was wintry, no April snow appeared on the evening of Henry’s birthday. More than 2 inches came down last weekend, though, and lacy snow blossoms clung to the branches of our maple tree earlier this week. Smack in the middle of the string of snow days, a delivery of tomato and broccoli seedlings arrived — a month earlier than I expected. So now, every day in late morning, I set the little plants outside, protected on our patio, for a few hours of direct sunlight, and then carry them back to their makeshift nursery on the kitchen table. I’ll be the broccoli’s nanny for the next few weeks, and even longer for the more fragile tomatoes, until the soil warms up for planting.
“April snow is a warning shot to impetuous gardeners” is a message I expected to hear from the Garden Goddess. Instead, it came from my husband, who is aware of my rush-the-season impulses. I wish my favorite mail-order garden nursery had remembered that, here in Idaho, our springtime of warm jackets and nighttime freezes continues.
Craft-Rozen remembers last summer’s drought and is grateful that our April snowfall will add to this year’s snowpack. Her spunky tomato seedlings can wear scarves and mittens for a while. Email her at scraft@aol.com.
