Sunday 4 March 2007

It Pays To Think Green

While I was living in Singapore I stayed in a four room flat with nary a space for gardening. I did not know what I have missed until I returned to my home in Malaysia. With that two little patches of land, my love for gardening developed. Being new to the hobby, I started to surf the net and discovered a world full of free gardening tips. As I did not want to loose all the useful tips I have dredged from the web, I started my website, "GreenBeings Invasion". Google "greenbeings invasion" or "greenbeings nancy" and you can read what I have been up to.

Little did I know that this website, will one day become my resume and enable me to acquire my first "job" gardening for the kindergarten my children were then attending. That, I think is a great achievement, in light of my "green horn" status as a gardener.

The principal of the school liked what she saw in my garden, my idea of running it as a recycling project and after reading my "resume", the job's mine. I have a confession to make though; I was not paid for the job but my husband regained his peace of mind as I stopped nagging him to move to a place with a bigger garden as I now have three huge gardens from the school to experiment with.

I helped the school set up recycling bins from Alam Flora and managed to generate interest in parents of students studying there and my neighbors to give me plants they have in abundance in their gardens or their cuttings. While going for walks with my children, I also managed to pick lots of pruning and cuttings discarded in our neighborhood park. With these, I successfully propagated some and was able to plant a large variety of greens for the school.

I did more research about recycling and started giving talks to the children and their parents about doing their 3Rs, that is, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". That is how my interest for creating stuff out of waste material started. If you would like to view some of my creations using waste material, click on the following link:

Cashable Trash

As news of my "Think Green, Let's Recycle Greens" project spread, I started receiving free pots and plants that are no longer wanted. The principal was very happy with the cost effective ways that I manged the gardens that she offered to allow my children to attend her school and other activities at special rates or at no charge till they both graduated.

So, it pays to think green.

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