alt="images"/> Give the children a mucky job that won’t cause damage to your plants! Discovering mini-beasts and worms is all part of the gardening experience, and collecting such creatures for investigation will keep them busy while you work. You need a suitable container (with air-holes) as a temporary base for the mini-beasts, some damp soil and a few stones. Add magnifying glasses and torches for the budding biologist. If your children find snails, slugs or caterpillars (or their eggs) on the underside of the leaves, make sure they tell you, so you can decide how to deal with them. My daughter adores snails and insists on making little habitats for them, but none of us are that keen on slugs (a huge pest in our garden), so I always get a call to come and remove the wee beastie if she discovers one. Above all, lead by example: show the children how to hold the creepy crawlies without hurting them, and that you respect them by always putting the little creatures back when you have finished with them.
Pruning and trimming is a job for the grown up, but depending on their length and number, the offcuts are great for play. Smallish, tender offcuts can be handed over for some imaginative garden ‘cooking’ – to be ripped up and stirred into old pots and pans along with grass cuttings, mud and water. Larger and more numerous branches and trimmings can make outside dens, or as the scenery of a small world setting for vehicles, animals or fairies.
Planting may well be a seasonal or infrequent job, depending on the size and type of your outside space, as well as your interest in gardening. You may have no flowerbeds whatsoever, so any planting will be constricted to containers. If you have a large mature garden with well-established plants, shrubs and trees you may wish to allocate a small flowerbed for easy-to-grow plants to be cultivated by yourself and your little one.
Quick and easy plants to grow with the kids
Here are some of the easiest plants to grow and look after:
Sweet peas: You don’t need a big garden to grow these beautifully scented flowers, they are ideal for a large pot or a windowbox.
Sunflowers: One of the best plants to get children started on. They are easy to grow and the seeds are cheap to buy. Children of all ages love them, and because they are quick-growing they keep them interested over several months.
Lamb’s ears: Children love stroking this plant’s soft velvety leaves, and the spikes of purplish-pink small flowers are attractive to bees, so ideal for a bug watch.
Snapdragons: These flowers are pretty and easy to grow. If you gently pinch their blooms they look like roaring dragons.
Marigolds: The blooms are vibrant yellows and oranges, and the plants are pretty forgiving if you forget to water them. The kids can plant them in pots or, if they are prone to forgetting to water them, they will find their own way in a sunny flowerbed.
Nasturtiums: Sow the seeds in pots in spring and the foliage then large orange and yellow blooms will quickly appear. Great for playing food games with, as the flowers are edible.
Tomatoes: Every gardening beginner’s favourite. You can grow them from seedlings planted straight into a compost bag or large pot. They need a sunny spot and a fair bit of watering, but there’s nothing like growing your own to encourage young children to try eating tomatoes.
Herbs: These plants are a wonderful source of scent. Lavender and rosemary are pretty tough, and both have purple-ish small flowers that attract bees. Rosemary can be used in cooking, and the petals of lavender can be dried and then used to make sweet-scented pocket-pillows or pot pourri.
Get your children interested in nature while they are out in the garden with you, and make their job the one of feeding the birds. You can very simply make a birdbath by using a terracotta flowerpot saucer or an old ceramic plate placed on top of an upturned flowerpot. Make sure it is kept clean and is filled with fresh water often – young children love to help with this. Providing birds with food, especially in the winter when the ground is frozen, is very important. Most garden centres sell seasonally-appropriate food to scatter on the ground, or on a bird table. You can also make bird-feeders with your children to hang from trees. Our favourite are apple- and seed-feeders which seem to attract most birds to our garden. (See for how to make this garden bird-feeder with your children.) The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has further tips for looking out for garden birds. Visit: www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/wildlife/inthewild/feedinggardenbirds/birdfeedingguide
Brilliant books for budding gardeners
There are some funny and beautifully illustrated picture books about gardens and gardening to pique interest and entertain you and your little ones. Here are a few of our favourites:
The Enormous Turnip – a classic folk tale retold by many and available worldwide in various editions
The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
Monkey and Robot in the Garden by Felix Hayes and Hannah Broadway
Ben’s Butterfly Garden by Kate Petty and Axel Scheffler
Flora’s Flowers by Debi Gliori
Eddie’s Garden: and How to Make Things Grow by Sarah Garland
How about singing while you do your garden chores? Here are a few of our favourites:
D’you know the parts of a plant?
(Sing to the tune of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes)
D’you know the parts of a plant, of a plant?
D’you know the parts of a plant, of a plant?
Flower and leaf
And stem and root
D’you know the parts of a plant, of a plant?
Lavender’s blue and Roses are red medley
Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly
Lavender’s green
When I am king, dilly dilly
You shall be queen.
Roses are red, dilly dilly
Violets are blue
Sugar is sweet, dilly dilly
And so are you.
For more information and seasonal suggestions for gardening with children, visit the Royal Horticultural Society website at www.rhs.org.uk/Children/For-families
