Choose Your Own Adventure – The Young Herbologist
By Alexis Constance Guillory
Beware and Warning!<br /> <br />This book is different from other books.<br /> <br />You and YOU ALONE are in charge of what happens in this story.<br /> <br />There are dangers, choices, adventures and consequences. The wrong decision could end in disaster...<br /><br />Today is your birthday and your parents, finally thinking you old enough for it, are offering you your own greenhouse. But not everything is as it seems. Will your knowledge in Herbology be enough to keep you out of trouble? Or will your decisions and lack of studying cost you more than you could have imagined...
Last Updated
May 31, 2021
Chapters
150
Reads
0
Chapter 148
Chapter 148
As you exit the greenhouse, you see that your father is waiting for you with a huge grin. He claps you on the back and tells you that he made the blue magical barriers so he could keep an eye on your progress. He then looks you in the eye and says that he is extremely proud of you and impressed by your knowledge and the fact that you took all the safety precautions you should have. As a reward, he gives you a new book on Herbology and says the greenhouse is now yours to maintain.
You sit on one of the bench outside and start leafing through the book. A chapter talks about what they call the “Gardening Effect” which you understand to be some sort of negative perception of Herbology by simplifying our understanding of plants and the work of Herbologists. It would seem that this Gardening Effect isn’t something all that recent, but hundreds of years in the works. And because of that, Herbology has suffered, whether it is by lack of funding, losing excellent candidates to fields that are considered more respectable or simply by being publicly ridiculed an used as scapegoat.
The next chapter you jump to talks about alien species, in other words, a plant or animal living outside of its original habitat ecosystem or geological range. From a Herbologist’s point of view, it would seem like invasive plants are the problem. A plant invasion works in 3 steps. First the seed/plant propagates to a new territory. Then it adapts to the new environment. And finally, it takes over the environment. The book says that invasive plants require more resources, especially water, draining and drying the grounds. It also advanced that they compromise research and can destroy the survival chances of rare herbs and other endangered plants. The chapter concluded by saying that while greenhouses are great, nothing beats being able to study a specimen in its own environment.
As you start on another Chapter, you hear you mother calling you for supper. It seems you’ve been so engrossed first in your greenhouse and then in the new book, that you haven’t seen the day pass by. It’s a good thing summer just started and you have 3 months before heading back to school. This summer will be the greatest one so far, you just know it.
THE END