A sunny morning awakened little Spotted the ladybug, who had seven spots - exactly according to her age. She flew out of her small house under a dandelion and set off on her daily garden inspection.
"Good morning, Mrs. Snailsworth!" she called cheerfully when she spotted her slow friend.
"Good morning to you too, Spotted," replied the snail, dragging her shiny shell behind her. "It rained quite hard yesterday, did you notice?"
The ladybug nodded. "Yes, all evening I listened to the drops drumming on the leaf I was hiding under. But look! Now it's beautifully sunny again!"
"And everything looks somehow... taller," noted the snail, stretching her eyes on stalks and looking around. "Especially the grass."
Spotted the ladybug flew a bit above the grass and indeed, the grass seemed to have grown overnight. Yesterday it had seemed quite low, and today? It reached almost to her wings when she stood on her tiny legs.
"That's strange," the ladybug pondered. "You know what? I'll find out how fast grass grows after rain! It'll be my research."
"Research?" repeated the snail with admiration. "That sounds important. But how do you want to measure it?"
The ladybug thought. "I need to make a plan. I'll visit different places in the garden and observe how fast grass grows in the sun, in the shade, near the pond, and by the fence."
"You need a measuring tool," the snail noted practically.
"You're right!" The ladybug looked around and spotted a fallen pine needle. "This needle will be perfect! It's straight and I can make marks on it."
The ladybug took the needle and made small marks on it with her legs. She divided it into five equal parts.
"Now I need help with measuring in different places," said the ladybug. "I can't manage to monitor everything myself."
"I'll help you," offered the snail, "but you know I move slowly."
"That doesn't matter. You can stay in one place and observe the grass in the shade of the old walnut tree. Meanwhile, I'll find other helpers."
The ladybug flew up and looked around the garden. Nearby she spotted Fred the ant, who was just dragging a bread crumb.
"Fred! Hello!" called the ladybug. "Would you help me with my research?"
The ant raised his head. "Research? That sounds interesting. What's it about?"
The ladybug explained her plan. "I need to find out how fast grass grows after rain in different places in the garden."
"Hmm," the ant pondered, "that's a good question. We ants notice such things because we need to maintain our paths. After rain, grass often grows over our trails."
"Exactly! So you'll help me?"
"Gladly! I can monitor the grass by the anthill. It's in a sunny spot, but the soil there is different - more sandy."
"Excellent!" the ladybug was pleased. "I still need someone to monitor the grass by the pond and by the fence."
Fred thought. "By the pond I often meet Linda the dragonfly. And by the fence lives Hopper the grasshopper. Maybe they could help you."
"That's a great idea! I'll go look for them right away."
The ladybug flew toward the small garden pond, where the water glistened in the morning sun. A beautiful blue dragonfly hovered above the surface.
"Linda!" called the ladybug. "I have an idea for research!"
The dragonfly elegantly landed on a water lily leaf. "What research, Spotted?"
The ladybug explained her plan and the dragonfly agreed to observe the grass by the pond. "The soil here is always moist, even when it's not raining," she noted. "I'm curious if that will affect the growth rate."
"That's exactly what I want to find out!" the ladybug got excited. "Now I just need to find Hopper by the fence."
She found Hopper the grasshopper playing a melody with his legs in the tall grass by the wooden fence.
"Hopper, I need you!" called the ladybug.
"Hi, Spotted! What's happening?" asked the grasshopper.
When the ladybug explained her research, the grasshopper jumped up enthusiastically. "Of course I'll help! The grass here by the fence is always the tallest, have you noticed? I think it's because people can't reach here with the lawnmower."
"That's an interesting observation!" the ladybug praised him. "Here's a measuring needle. I made marks on it so we can compare how much the grass has grown."
The ladybug distributed the pine needles with marks to all her helpers and explained how to measure: "Stick the needle into the ground next to a grass blade and mark where the grass reaches. Then we'll measure every hour and see how fast it grows."
"And how will we know when an hour has passed?" asked the snail.
"Good question," the ladybug pondered. "Look, when the sun moves the width of that big leaf on the apple tree, approximately one hour will have passed."
Everyone nodded and scattered to their stations. The ladybug remained on the sunny clearing in the middle of the garden.
"So we're beginning our research!" she called enthusiastically and stuck her needle next to the straightest grass blade. She noticed that the grass reached exactly to the second mark on the needle.
During the morning, the ladybug regularly checked her measuring spot and flew from one helper to another to gather information.
By the pond, Linda the dragonfly reported: "The grass here is growing very fast! In the first hour it jumped almost one mark higher."
By the anthill, Fred showed: "Here it's growing slower, maybe because the soil is drier. Only half a mark per hour."
By the shady walnut tree, the snail noted: "In the shade the grass is taller, but grows more slowly. Only a quarter mark per hour."
And by the fence, Hopper was jumping enthusiastically: "Here the grass grows fastest of all! Almost a whole mark and a half per hour!"
The ladybug carefully recorded all this information on a dandelion leaf using flower pollen.
"These are amazing results!" said the ladybug when they all met for lunch in the shade of a large burdock leaf. "It seems that grass grows fastest in moist places and in the sun."
"And slowest in the shade," added the snail.
"And what did you find out, Spotted?" asked the ant.
"At my spot, on the sunny clearing, the grass grew by one whole mark per hour. That's faster than by the anthill, but slower than by the pond and the fence."
"And why is that?" the dragonfly wondered.
The ladybug thought. "I think grass needs three things to grow: sun, water, and good soil. After rain, it has enough water. If it also has sun, it grows faster. That's why by the pond, where it's always moist and also sunny, it grows so well."
"And by the fence?" asked Hopper.
"There's not only sun and water from the rain, but maybe also good nutrients for plants," the ladybug reasoned.
"And why does it grow slowest in the shade?" asked the snail.
"In the shade there's no sunlight, which grass needs to grow," the ladybug explained. "Plants need sun to make their food."
"So grass grows fastest when it has enough water, sun, and good soil," the ant summed up. "That makes sense!"
"Exactly!" the ladybug nodded. "And different places in the garden provide different conditions. That's why grass grows faster or slower depending on where it's located."
"That's amazing!" Linda the dragonfly got excited. "I never thought about it this way before."
In the afternoon they continued measuring and found that the grass growth rate slowed down a bit as the soil began to dry out.
"See?" the ladybug pointed out. "Now that the water from the rain is slowly drying up, the grass isn't growing as fast anymore. By the pond it's still the fastest because the soil there stays moist."
"And what if it rained again?" asked the grasshopper.
"That would be an interesting experiment!" the ladybug got excited. "We could observe whether the growth rate would increase again."
As if on cue, the sky began to cloud over and thunder could be heard in the distance.
"It seems we'll have a chance to find out!" laughed the ant. "I'd better hurry to the anthill so I don't get soaked."
"I must hide too," said the ladybug. "But let's leave the needles in place and meet tomorrow morning to see the results!"
Everyone scattered to their hiding places just in time, because soon the first raindrops began to fall. The ladybug hid under a broad leaf and watched as the rain sprinkled the garden.
"How exciting!" she thought to herself. "Tomorrow we'll find out if the second rain will speed up the grass growth even more."
The morning after the rain, all the researchers met again. To their surprise, the grass had grown even more than the previous day.
"Look at this!" the ladybug pointed excitedly. "The grass by the pond is now so tall it reaches to the end of the needle!"
"And by the fence it's even exceeded the needle!" reported Hopper the grasshopper. "I had to use two needles placed on top of each other to measure how high it reaches."
"In the shade under the walnut tree it also grew, but it's still the shortest," said the snail.
The ladybug carefully wrote everything down. "This is fascinating! It seems the second rain really did speed up the growth. The grass used the additional water to grow even faster."
"And what's our conclusion?" asked Linda the dragonfly.
The ladybug stood on a dandelion leaf so everyone could see her, and solemnly announced the results of their research:
"After our two-day observation, we can say that grass grows fastest in places where it has enough water, sun, and good soil. After rain it grows faster because it has plenty of water. In sunny places it grows faster than in the shade. And it seems to grow most luxuriantly by the pond and by the wooden fence, where it has the best conditions."
Everyone applauded with their little legs and wings.
"That was excellent research," praised Fred the ant. "Now I know why we always have to clear our ant paths again after rain."
"And I know why the grass by the pond is always so juicy," added the dragonfly.
"And I know why it's always tallest by the fence," nodded Hopper the grasshopper.
The snail slowly nodded. "And I know why in the shade under the walnut tree I don't have to climb up so often to reach the plant leaves – the grass grows slower there."
Spotted the Ladybug was very proud of her first research. "You know what? We should start a garden club of little discoverers! We could investigate other interesting things too."
"Like why flowers have different colors!" the dragonfly got excited.
"Or why some plants bloom in the morning and others in the evening," suggested the ant.
"Or where dew comes from!" added the grasshopper.
And so in that little garden, a club of little discoverers was born, who discovered new secrets of nature every day. Spotted the Ladybug wrote in her dandelion leaf notebook the first research question: "How fast does grass grow after rain?" and next to it the first answer: "It depends on where the grass grows. It needs sun, water, and good soil to grow fastest."
And when a few days later a little boy came into the garden, he noticed that the grass by the wooden fence and around the pond was much taller than elsewhere. "That's strange," he said to his mother. "Why is the grass different heights in different places?"
Spotted the Ladybug, who was just sitting on a nearby flower, quietly laughed. If only that little boy knew that a small ladybug with seven spots already knew the answer!