Growing Crystal Garden

In my science class we are doing a fun project called "Growing Crystal Garden". It is a project that we make a garden The garden can be a Japanese or English garden and I chose a Japanese garden but a I made it a winter garden. After we make the garden we put crystal solutions on it and wait. This is going to be my observation table I hope you enjoy it.

DAY 1 January 26

So before I put the crystals on my garden it was just a diorama of a garden with one tree, bush, five rocks, and a pond so it was a bit boring. The next two days we put crystal solutions all over the garden. The salt solution I put on my pond and the next day when I looked at my pond it had already started to grow crystals they were in small circles that were sparkling if  you look very close. They were spread out all over the pond and it looked really cool. And mostly the other just had a different color solution on it but they did not look different.

DAY 2 January 28

Now the crystals on my garden are really starting to grow. The crystals on the bush are growing great, they are growing a like little basketballs. The green crystals on my bridge are growing a bit slow but but steady. The crystals on my tree hardened the cotton on it. Because I added a bit more solution on the pond on day one I have a lot of crystals on my pond which makes it look really frozen. 

Day 3 January 31  

At first when I saw my garden I thought it was the same but then I pulled out a microscope and it made it all different. I noticed that the crystals on the rock started to grow it looked really cool but it was small. The crystal solution on the tree the crystals on the pond have gotten a bit bigger. The crystals on the bridge have not changed.

The last day of the two week period

Over this two week period I was observing my garden a lot happened, but now I do not see any differences in this last look. I think all of the crystals have grown as much as they can. 

Now I have noticed where crystals grow the best, and the worst. I saw that on my garden that grew the easiest and the best was the salt solution. The crystal that grew the worst and hardest was the Borax. I also observed that the crystals grow better on denser and more leveled items like my pond. Crystals don't grow good on things like cotton as you can see at the photos at the bottom. I think the way you should put crystals on objects that might be covered or flat and more dense. I have noticed that on others garden the crystals also grow beneath objects. On mine I noticed that they grow on flat surfaces.

In conclusion, I observed that all in all the crystals on my garden grow best on flat and dense conditions, so I think that if a solution is on a flat but dense surface it will grow best. I have seen that on mine because they grew so well on the pond but not on the ball of cotton, and I noticed the same on many others garden. I have learned that crystals also grow when all of the solution is gone, but they don't grow that much they just grow a little bit. Now my hypothesis has changed to '' Crystals need the right conditions to grow like on a flat surface, and also there should not be puddles of it because it does not grow that well, I saw that on some others garden".

I had a few mistakes like, not getting enough solution on the rock, putting solution on cotton, and putting to little solution on my pond, but my crystals on the on the bush did quiet good.Now what I would have changed was made the experiment on something with low sides because I did mine in a shoe box and that was hard to work with. Also I would have dunked the rock into the solution, put more solution on the pond, and not put any on the cotton because it just turned it blue and there were no crystals. After this experiment I still have a few questions about crystals and they are" Does the temperature affect their growth, which crystal solution is of everyone, what solution is easist to make, and how many are their?"

Here is my garden and map

What is written on my map is the crystal solutions I used.