With spring wanting to make itself known across the country, you might find yourself wanting to turn your hand to gardening. Transforming the neglected green space at home, following a long winter, may seem like a lot of hard work but many hands make light work.
This is the year to get the kids excited about gardening and there are plenty of ways to get them involved. Inspiring your little one to get into the garden and help them care and nurture plants and flowers can set them up with a healthy hobby that will last them their whole life!
Step 1: Get Prepared
Gardening is a fun and inexpensive way to bond with your children but being prepared is a good place to start.
Putting together their own gardening kit is a cute idea and doesn’t have to cost and arm and a leg. Thing to consider including are: a bucket or basket, gardening gloves, kid-friendly tools such as a trowel, safety scissors, seeds, popsicle sticks for plant labelling and a watering can
Step 2: Decide What to Grow
If you’re just starting out, it’s best to keep things simple. According to The Royal Horticultural Society Easy flowers to grow from seed include sunflowers, marigolds and poppies and big seeds from trees such as oak or sycamore.
While sensory plants to play with include rattling poppy seedheads, furry Stachys byzantina, smelly curry plant (Helichrysum italicum), lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) and chocolate cosmos (Cosmos atrosanguineus)
Step 3: Add Some Structure
Taking extra time to create features just for kids will offer more opportunities for them to connect with your garden. Harness the affection children have for building and playing in forts by including them in the construction of special garden structures.
Trellises: Place for plants to climb
A trellis is anything that a plant climbs or uses for support and some plants must have a trellis in order to grow properly. You can build a simple trellis by getting creative with materials that you may have lying around. For example, you can tie off lengths of twine between two of more posts you’ve set in the ground, creating a string “wall’ for plants to climb, or create a tepee trellis.
Activity Idea: Build A Tepee Trellis
Plants can climb the trellis and it can serve as a special fort for little ones.
You will need:
- Three or more 6-7 x foot-tall wooden stakes (avoid smooth ones which will allow the twine to slip.
- Twine
- Scissors
- Step stool
- Sledge hammer (to help set posts)
- Push three or more wooden stakes into the soil so they lean toward each other in a triangle of circle formation and tie them together near the top.
- Walk around the tepee (avoid compacting the soil) and wrap twine around each stake, creating a wall of twine levels each three to four inches apart. This will allow climbing lines to form walls around the tepee Be sure to leave one section untwined to serve as an entrance.
- Ensure that the lowest level of twine is no more than three to four inches above the soil so that plants can easily find it.
- Pole beans (natural climbers) and nasturtium (which can be trained to climb) are great candidates for being planted under a tepee trellis. Come summer, nasturtium flowers and leaves will provide comfortable shade in their secret spot.
Other Projects to Try: Build a Bug Hotel
Insects and other minibeasts need safe spaces to shelter, hide from predators and raise their young. You can help them by building a bug hotel in your garden or outside area.
The Woodland Trust recommends a making a log pile lodge to help encourage wildlife in the garden.
To make a log pile, simply collect small logs, large sticks and pieces of rotting wood. Pile them up in a damp, shady area of your garden, then stuff some dead leaves in the nooks and crannies to make it cosy.
Good for: centipedes, woodlice and beetles who like to burrow into decaying wood. Log piles may also attract birds, frogs and hedgehogs looking for a tasty snack!
Add an Unexpected Twist
Incorporating unexpected human objects into your garden space can create a striking contrast between human systems and natural ones. By repurposing an old wooden ladder as a trellis, a retired rubber boot as a planting container, or an old play set into a DIY mud kitchen add something special and unique to your green sanctuary.
