Another spring is coming. As a Chinese saying goes, ”Bright Spring casts hope upon everything that glows and booms.” On the occasion of the 111th International Women’s Day, SFL Women’s Committee and Trade Union organized a green plant planting activity to celebrate the festival. Ding Jian, Secretary of CPC SFL Committee, Zhang Hongmei, Associate Dean of SFL, Zhu Yifan, Vice Secretary of CPC SFL Committee, Zhao Xiaohong, Chairman of SFL Trade Union, and more than 80 female faculty from various departments, research centers and offices participated in the event, which took place at the noon of March 3rd in the conference hall, Room 300 of Yang Yongman Building. Yang Xiaohong, Head of the SFL Women’s Committee and member of the Women’s Union, presided over the activity.

Ding Jian made a warm speech. On behalf of CPC SFL committee and all male faculty, he extended festive greetings to all female faculty and thanked them for their dedication to SFL’s rapid development and their fruitful achievements over the years. At the end of 2020, SFL’s First Party Congress put forward the goal of building a first-class foreign language discipline and a harmonious SFL in the next five years. The year 2021 witnesses the first year of the National 14th Five-Year Plan, the third step of SJTU’s plan of “Three Steps” and the starting year of SJTU’s new development stage in building itself into a first-class university. The beginning affects and decides the future. SFL Trade Union and SFL Women’s Committee should concentrate more on guiding the majority of staff to devote themselves to the work of "imparting knowledge and educating people, upholding virtues and cultivating the young” in the new era. By holding more high-quality activities, the enthusiasm of the faculty can be further aroused and the overall goal of SFL’s development will be served.

The activity is divided into two parts: lecture and practice. The lecture centers on the introduction to the species of indoor and outdoor plants, maintenance methods, and some misunderstandings of flower-growing, etc. The florist explained the four points in detail: factors affecting plant conservation, common problems of plant conservation, maintenance methods of freshly-cut family flowers and characteristics of indoor half-hydroponic flowers. Plant maintenance requires three elements, including light, wind and water. Compared with lighting and environmental ventilation, watering is the easiest to intervene, but also the easiest to make mistakes. A real gardener starts from knowing how to water. For example, Epipremnum aureum needs a lot of water because of its highly-developed roots, while willful watering may lead to the death of Pachira aquatica owing to its relatively weak roots. Such examples enlightened women teachers, who nodded in agreement and regretted past way of bad gardening.

As for freshly-cut family flower growing, three aspects should be controlled, including cleaning, root-cutting and environment-creating. Florist reminded everybody to avoid common mistakes, for example, freshly-cut flower is not potted, so do not expose them to strong sunshine and ventilation. As for special maintenance of freshly-cut flowers, in addition to roses, silk, water lily, carnation, lily, the florists focused on buttercup flower, tulip and African chrysanthemum, which are prone to withering stems. The solution is to add a drop of detergent into water, which can help keep the flower stem stay upright.

Yang Xiaohong thanked the florist for her wonderful explanation. After the lecture, teachers selected their favorite pot plants from nearly 10 varieties, including green bean, asparagus fern, Asplenium nidus and so on. The florist then instructed them to practice semi-hydroponic planting. After a series of procedures of installing, off-potting, re-planting, fastening, and watering, a beautiful half-hydroponic green plant DIY was completed.

The activity lasted for more than an hour. Holding the DIY hydroponic plants in their hands, women teachers returned to their respective posts. With what they have gained from the lecture and more smiles on their face, they threw themselves  into their work enthusiastically.