Out2play in the garden

Signs of Spring: Snowdrops and Hearts

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:29:00 +0000

A wander around a snow drop garden in February is an uplifting experience. I was lucky enough to do just that recently. The venue was Brandy Mount Gardens in Alresford, Hampshire. It holds national collections of snowdrops and daphnes, as well as growing other early flowering plants such as aconites and witch hazel.

Daphne

It was a joy to see and I hope that everybody this year manages to spy some snowdrops. They are growing in the hedgerows in Dorset. There are many gardens holding special snowdrop openings this time of year for the National Gardens Scheme. Well worth a visit if you can make it.

For access to the garden we had to park the car at a local Lavender Farm. So one of the unexpected benefits of the visit was a little bit of retail therapy with lots of lovely lavender and garden products. These hearts made from Lavender looked stunning. I made myself a promise to return to the farm in the summer when I am sure that the lavender fields will look equally stunning.

Snow and Ice Activities: Making Ice Sculptures with Children

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:16:00 +0000

The cold weather has provided us with a great opportunity to make some lovely ice sculptures this week. We were reminded about them when one formed naturally from water left a sand mould in my son’s sand and water table. I photographed the result above.

So the next evening the remaining moulds were washed and the craft box delved into. We also took a few flowers from the garden and used some fir cones and acorns. The resulting tray of sculptures were then placed outside. Alas that night it didn’t freeze, but this morning we the jackpot with five beautiful sculptures. It is very cold today so hoping that some of them will survive.

We did learn a few things along the way, which I hope will help you if you try them.

• We placed string and ribbon in two of them which meant they could be tied onto a line. This really helps them to catch the light and they can easily be seen from the house. So I would recommend you do that with all your sculptures. The ribbon sculpture stayed on the line longer than the string one.

• Make your moulds close to an outside door as they are not the easiest to transport. We had placed ours outside we had to top them up with water.

• Place them close to the house because your children are likely to want to keep popping out to check on them. They are more likely to freeze if just placed a little away from walls and other frost protection.

• Do not fill them with too many objects, as the transparency is one of the best things about them.

You don’t have to use moulds. Tonight we are going to experiment with plastic cups, saucers, food dye, and also try and make our own icicles.

Watching Birds in the Garden: A Great Kids Activity

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:15:00 +0000

Just now there is quite a lot in the media about garden birds. Next weekend 28/29 January 2012 is the RSPBs Great Garden Bird Watch and people have been noting that they are not seeing so many birds in the garden during this, so far, mild winter. This article reckons there are staying in the countryside.

In our garden this week we have seen our resident wren, starlings, blackbirds, blue tits, great tits, 2 robins, pigeons, a greater spotted woodpecker and the blackbird shown above eating berries from the ivy.

Spotting and identifying birds is an ideal activity for children this time of year. You can see them through the window and you don’t necessarily have to use binoculars. Binoculars are not always easy for small children, who may have difficulty finding and focusing on the subject. A bird table or feeder will encourage the birds as may a bird water bath. The birds in our garden are attracted by the oak tree next door and our shrubs with berries.

It is useful to have a bird book or identification sheet close at hand to help with deciding what has been seen. Spotting birds from upstairs windows and also from the front of the house adds a bit of variety. We only ever see sparrows in our front garden. Possibly because there are more hedge type plants in front gardens. You could also pop outside to check which birds you can hear. Our garden is rarely without birdsong or noise.

Spotting birds is a great skill for your children to have. It makes walks and journeys far more interesting and helps them appreciate and learn about wildlife. I can’t now resist in showing you below what I spotted last week. No, it wasn’t in my garden, but just off the river Thames in London. If you are lucky enough to be close to a kingfisher, it must be one of the easiest birds in the country to spot.

Kingfisher on the Thames

The whole family is looking forward to the garden bird watch next weekend. We will try and complete our hour before midday as usually there are more birds about. Hope you find the time to do the same.

Six Resolutions for my Garden in 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:13:00 +0000

What are Yours?

Spending time in my garden, gardening with my son, and thinking and reading about all things horticultural, provide me with inspiration, stimulation and a sense of purpose. I’d be lost without a garden. So the New Year brings new thoughts on how I get to grips with my garden. This time last year I looked back at my garden. This year I am looking forward.

I resolve to:-

1 Do what all keen gardeners want to do – get out into the garden more often. Building work in my house means that I can now see my back garden from my kitchen and also better from the living space at the back of the house. So I am hoping that this new visibility will entice me out more often. The housework will suffer, but what the heck. I will also join the ranks of the early risers for the odd spot of gardening before breakfast and before the rest of the household has risen.

2 Plant those plants. All too often plants get bought and seedlings get germinated and then stay in their containers far too long, drying out, getting root bound and dying. I say no longer in this garden as I go out to pick up the azalea (still in its original pot) which has been blown over by the wind.

3 Keep a wildlife garden diary with my son. I garden organically and hope that our plot is wildlife friendly. At times we spot our garden toad and we all love seeing the different garden birds. A record will help start to identify who lives with us and visits us. It may also encourage my son to write some entries in the diary and me to think about planting more to encourage wildlife into our garden.

4 To get daddy out into the garden. My brother in law is just about to start a vegetable plot with my niece and nephew. This got me thinking that whilst I love performing my earth mother role with my son perhaps it would be good for my son not just to identify gardening with me. A bit more daddy in the garden would be a good thing.

5 Use that greenhouse. Last year I was lucky to have acquired the use of an all singing all dancing greenhouse, with light, heat and electricity. I am ashamed to say I hardly used it as I found it rather intimidating. This year I will go for it big time and hopefully grow more exotic and tender fruit and veg. It is not just going to me who will to be bold in growing, my son already has a packet of white sunflower seeds to experiment with.

White Sunflower Seeds

6 National Gardening Week. The RHS are running a National Gardening Week commencing Monday 16 April 2012, including a new campaign for School Gardening. Such a good idea, can’t think why it hasn’t happened before. I am actively going to publicise this locally and perhaps organise some local events. So watch this space.

Please let us know what your plans are for going Out2play in your garden this year.

A Christmas Star from the Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:42:00 +0000

Last spring when I cut back my dogwood in the front garden I had good intentions. I knew that the lovely red stems which had brightened up the garden all winter long could be put to further use. I hadn't expected it to take me quite so long to use them. Last weekend we brought the holly and other foliage in from the garden and settled down to decorate the house. This year the holly has produces loads of berries and the blackbirds have been feeding off them. I have therefore decided no twigs with berries in the house this year. They are to be left in the garden for the birds to feast from. So the dogwood star we have made provides us with some festive red.

We started with the bunch of stems and then cut nine lengths of the same size. We then tied triple stems to from a triangle. It would have been lovely to use the red raffia. However for my six year, and also myself, it was far too difficult connecting all the pieces of twigs whist trying to tie. Our solution was to use red rubber bands. After making another triangle all we needed to do was to attach the two together and our star was born.

We hope you like it. Other flexible stems could also be used, especially those from willows. Merry Christmas. Hope you manage to bring some of your garden into the house this holiday. And I don't mean mud!

Autumn Colours at Stourhead

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:51:00 +0000

We hadn’t planned to visit, but after a whole day of rain we needed to get out for an autumn ramble. Helpfully the evening before Radio 4’s PM programme had interviewed the head gardener from Stourhead. The passion he displayed for the garden was infectious and helped us to decide that a visit to see the Autumn colours was a must. We were not disappointed.

Situated in Wiltshire just off of the A303 it is one of the best landscape gardens in the world. With tremendous views, situated at the source of the river Stour, which then runs south all the way through Dorset until it reaches the sea near Bournemouth.

Its a great garden for kids, as well as everyone else. There was a tree trail highlighting champion trees and a simple spotter’s guide on offer. However there was no play area. None was needed.

The garden was very busy – lots of people must have been listening to Radio 4. There were lots of families with children and all seemed fully occupied with the endless opportunities for collecting leaves – we played a game matching the red of my son’s jacket, running around, clambering over tree trunks and stumps, jumping in puddles and mud courtesy of the previous day’s rain and playing under branches full of beautifully coloured leaves.

The vistas were spectacular, the light superb and the refection of water from the beautiful lakes mesmerising. No human being could be unaffected by the rich tapestry created by the trees. It is a garden that has a restorative effect on adult and youngsters alike.

Now enough of me waxing lyrically. I just hope that everyone sometime somewhere gets to experience such beauty.

Apple Day and the Abundance Project

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:56:00 +0000

Picking apples from a tree must be one of the most valued childhood memories. Its great to have apple trees in your garden, but the harvesting, storing and preparation of them can be a mixed blessing. Having given away loads of our apples to family and friends and stored away several box full we were still left with rather a surplus. Kingston’s apple day solved our problem for us.

We took our apples and some empty bottles to Kingston Environment Centre. Here we washed them, cut them up into large pieces and put them, core and pip and skin as well, into an apple grinder. Next the pulp was placed into an apple press. A couple of turns of the screw and hey presto we had our own apple juice. Ours was particularly pretty as the addition of some apples with pink flesh added a perfect blush to juice.

Apple day events are held all over the country usually as close to Apple Day on the 21 October. A friend of mine who lives in a village in Somerset takes all her apple to the village apple press. It would be great if urban communities could have something similar.

Yesterday we learnt how easy it was to make pressed apple juice with just a bit of arm power. I also found out about Kingston’s Abundance Project. There is no more a sorry sight that seeing fruit rotting on the ground because nobody has harvested it. The project aims to rectify this by harvesting the seasonal glut of local fruit, such as apples, pears and plums and redistribute the surplus to the Kingston community on a non-profit basis. A great idea and we will certainly be helping to pick next year.

There is also a national fruitshare scheme where you can register as a fruit seeker of a fruit sharer. Rather like the landshare scheme. With projects like these lets hope in years to come we will all be eating local apples and fruit going to waste will be a thing of the past.

An Indian Summer in the Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 13:34:00 +0000

I read this week that an Indian summer can only occur in October. Well if that is the case then ours is about to start tomorrow. If you are a gardener, love gardens, have a young family then you are going to just love having summer at this time of the year. Or are you? It certainly great to extend the time you can get out into your garden and enjoy it. But is it great for everything. Are those plants and animals who use temperature to determine their behaviour going to get slightly confused?

In my garden the gains of warm sunny days are:-

Those green tomatoes that never ripen may actually all turn red this year.
Its been a great season for raspberries and they are still producing fruit and those apples may just ripen on the tree before becoming fallers.
For everyone growing pumpkins - as a plant that does not like the frost, they may just get to stay in the ground until the end of October.

Being in the garden this time of year enables us to listen to the acorns dropping and spot the squirrels squirrelling away those acorns. We have fantastic spider webs in the garden with highly active spiders for at least the last month. Tonight we are going to take full advantage of the warm, but dark by 7 o'clock, evening and do a torchlight safari.

On the minus side I am still having to cut the grass, with the help of my six year old, who is really keen to have a go at the push mower. The pots and the remaining vegetables are going to need watering. My harvest of fruit and vegetables is ripening like mad in the kitchen. So there is an urgent need to store, cook and/or freeze them.

This heatwave must be a goldmine for phenologists ( those who study how plants and animals are affected by variations in climate). My garden certainly looks a mismash of plants from all seasons. I have full red holly berries, together with a rose which started flowering in May and still has buds on. I know in Dorset there are still swallows around and wonder if they will now be leaving later then usual.

I will be making to most of the sunshine and be out in my garden this weekend. Its a great opportunity for everyone else to do the same.

Creative Business Photography Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 09:14:00 +0000

On Friday I was in seventh heaven. Why? Because I was in a walled garden, having a go at photography, with a lovely bunch of ladies. I attended a creative photography workshop run by Vicki Knights at the Medicine Garden in Cobham.

If you are a regular reader of this blog or my Kidsinthegarden website you will know that there is still much room for improvement in my photos. We were given a really good grounding in the basics of lifestyle product photography, which in my case covers kids outdoor toys, children’s gardening gifts and, of course, plants and flowers.

I loved every minute of it. Its great to learn new things. We were given loads of hints and tips from adjusting exposure to what to do post production. As a result of the workshop I am beginning to look at light in a very different way and consider how it will affect my shot. I am also far more aware of the composition of my photo. I now feel far less intimidated by the technicalities of my camera.

I hope you like the photos I took on the day. Please watch out for more changes. I will be working hard in the next couple of weeks. I have to, for we have been given homework!

Where Am I?

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 19:27:00 +0000

A pictorial post and a quiz for the summer. This garden is in the heart of a large city in the UK. Can you guess where it is?

It has a pond, a meadow and one of the cties busiest roads on its southern boundary

It is a real oasis in the heart of the city. Well worth a visit.

The building in this last photo should identify it for you. If you are not familiar with London it is the wildlife garden at the Natural History Museum. When I took these photos a couple of weeks ago there were long queues for the museum, but only myself and two other couples in the garden.

Growing with Kids 1 - Radishes

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:30:00 +0000

Radish harvest

We are adding a few more veg to our repertoire this year. Lots of kids gardening books suggest that one of the easiest vegetables to grow with kids are radishes and guess what they are right. Our little bunch above were planted at the end of half term, in early June and have gone from plot to plate in less than five weeks. That's fast growing.

They are of the globe variety, with a hot and quite fiery taste - a little bit too peppery for my son. For me they brought back memories of my childhood with my family growing them and cutting crosses in the top to open them up into star shapes. We also used to have great fun making vegetable faces with them and other vegetables.

They are ideal for taking on picnics. Although they look good with leaves on we took them off of ours before storing to prevent goodness travelling up to the leaves.

We will definitely be sowing so more this summer though will take the advice from Love radish to sow a purple variety with a milder flavour perhaps more suited to younger children.

Kids Garden Activities: Painting Pots, Bunches of Herbs and the Odd Decorated Pebble

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 20:30:00 +0000

Painted Pots using Star Stickers

Painting Garden Pots

If you are like me there are loads of activities you never get around to doing with children. Over the past week I’ve had the opportunity to test out a number of garden crafts without the kids, especially those involving paint. Four weeks notice to stock and run a plant and produce stall for the school fair was not enough time to grow very much. We therefore decided to supplement the green produce on the stall with some home painted pots and stones. I saw the advert for 100 free terracotta pots on freegle too late to grab them so it was off to Homebase to buy some.

Stencils on pot

A couple of class mums met one evening to stock the stall and have a couple of glasses of wine. I had diligently read up that to make the paint waterproof and weather proof . So we used 2 parts acrylic paint to one part PVC glue. Our experiences that evening taught us to let your creative juices flow and if they don’t use stencils. However the easiest method was placing stickers on the pot and rim. Large stickers that stuck really well worked best. On the basis of the mess we created then if doing this with kids outdoors is probably advisable. We had great fun and found it very therapeutic, hopefully something that will equally apply to children.

Painted Stones

All of the pots comments apply equally to painting pebbles. The smaller surface area and flatter configuration may well make them easier to paint. I loved the idea of painting a child’s name or initials on a stone. Great for them to place on their plot.

Bunches of Herbs

If you have hardwood culinary herbs such as bay, rosemary and thyme already growing in your garden you can make good use of them. This is a really easy kids activity. Depending on age, they can help to choose the herbs to cut, take off any decaying leaves and tie with pretty ribbons. They can then be hung up to dry somewhere visible where the stages of drying can be observed. Finally at a later date the kids can pick them for use in cooking.

So in future I won't be quite so daunted at having a go at the more messy garden crafts with my son. I hope this account has also encouraged you.

More Green Space and Less Hard Surfaces in your Garden - WHY?

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 06:56:00 +0000

A recent report by the London Wildlife Trust on how London is losing its green gardens came up with some interesting facts.

There are approx 3.8 million gardens in London (if you count front and back gardens separately) – Wow what a lot.
24% of London is domestic outdoor space with 14% of it vegetated. It is therefore really valuable green space.

As a result of garden design and maintenance since 1998/99 there has been a 12% drop in vegetation in gardens, hard surfaces have increased within gardens by 26% and areas of garden buildings by 55%. These are real losses as once an area is paved it is likely to be a long time, if ever, before it is removed.

The report got me thinking about how we transform our gardens to become more family friendly and suit the needs of our kids by adding paving, dens and outdoor offices. For front gardens car parking and more paving to ease maintenance are an increasing popular choice. Although planning permission is now needed if you wish to pave over your front garden unless the paving is permeable.

Our front garden

So how has our garden fared. Are we helping this green decline? In the back we have lifted a whole load of sleepers and created a vegetable bed (sorry edible garden – see previous post). However we are extending the back of the house causing a 10ft loss of garden. So nil points here

In the front 2 years ago all the paving was lifted and a new garden created. The idea was to create a low maintenance front garden full of plants. The photo you see shows the garden now at the end of June having had no maintenance all year except for pruning of the dogwood. So we are moving in the right direction here.

I reckon therefore our garden comes out neutral in terms of change, but more by accident then design - how does yours do? I want our garden to attract wildlife and know that keeping it as vegetated as possible and planting insect attracting plants will help. So from now on I will be monitoring it and checking on how we are doing.

The Language of Gardening that will get Children Growing

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 07:23:00 +0000

Crops in pots

Growing your own and getting the whole family involved in gardening has become cool over the last decade.

We no longer have vegetable plots, but edible gardens. Our flower gardens have gone vertical and our roofs have gone green. Kids at school no longer garden, but grow. Though we still have loads of school gardening clubs. Everyone wants a sought after allotment, but community gardens and land shares are now real alternatives. If you haven’t got a garden you can still take the one pot pledge.

The focus on growing food is highlighted by some lovely slogans. So we now have:-

Ledge Veg
Crops in Pots
Plot to Plate
Fork to Fork
Welly to Belly

There’s bound to be more, so please add to the list by leaving a comment.

Vertical garden in an urban landscape

Our children attend Seedy Sunday and Sow and Grow events. For those who like a combative approach there is Guerrilla Gardening and Seed Bombs.

On a slightly more serious note we also have food security. A reason for growing your own food you will see more often raised on US gardening websites that those in the UK. E Coli outbreaks, knowing where are food comes and dealing with food shortages may all well be issues are children have to deal with in the future.

However, for now, whether you garden or grow, they are all life skills for our kids. I love this new language of gardening. Its great for our children to grow up with this new vocabulary.

Children's Gardens at RHS Chelsea

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Fri, 27 May 2011 08:28:00 +0000

A Child's Garden in Wales

The Chelsea Flower Show must be one of the few UK flower shows that does not encourage children to attend. I only saw one child visitor and two children behind a stand on the day I attended. Children's growing was highlighted in several gardens this year.

My favourite was A Child's Garden in Wales. A 1940s inspired garden created by Anthea Guthrie, with the teenage boys from special needs schools in Heronsbridge and Ysgol Bryn Castell Wales with whom she had been working with for two years. Home made footballs and hobby horses, a rusted iron junk fence with umbrella spokes all feature. No plastic toys in sight. As the garden is set in 1947 most of it is given over to fruit and vegetables. The few annuals children then would have grown are surprisingly similar to those children would have grown today, including Love in the Mist, Calendula, forget me nots and night scented stock. They are similar to the easy grow flowers seeds I use with my son. Its great that the children researched the history of the garden

Calendula flowers amongst the vegetables

Another group of schools showcasing flower and food growing were to be found at the Miracle Growers Learning Journey garden. If you look at their site you'll see they had some royal visitors.

Radishes from the Learning Journey

The cut flower part of the garden highlighted 9 inner city schools in south east London where the children grew their own cut flowers and able to take a learning journey into plant care. The project recognised that many urban schools are surrounded by hard urban views with little foliage and flowers. It demonstrated that
even schools without land garden soil can grow in containers,

Similarly the fruit and veg part of the garden demonstrated how the children in schools throughout the country grew food without a vegetable patch using window sills and containers on hard landscaped areas. The photograph shows the large variety of radishes which were grown, a really easy plant for children to grow.

If you have a favourite Chelsea garden this year please let us know. If you are growing food and flowers in your school please get in touch we'd love to hear from you.

Three Doors at RHS Chelsea that all Kids will Love

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Thu, 26 May 2011 11:13:00 +0000

I visited the Chelsea Flower Show in London yesterday. If you are in the UK you will know that the papers and television have been overflowing with reviews of it. The show certainly lived up to expectations. I arrived as the gates opened at 8.00am which allowed for a quiet first hour and enabled me to take photos without the crowds.

There is a fuller more meaty post to follow about what the show had to offer children's gardening. What I often take away from garden shows are one or two details where I think, I could do that or that will work in my garden. On that basis I'd like to share three images with you. They will appeal to children of all ages. The first is from the Fever-Tree's Tree House garden designed by Stephen Hall. This had a beautiful low level tree house with the most enchanting door. No child would be able to resist going through this. It conjures up images of secret gardens and hidden worlds. Just raising the house off the floor by one/two feet added to the interest.

Tree House Garden

Faces in the garden are a firm favourite of mine. Carving a face in the door to this tree house such a simple and clever idea. It could translate quite easily to a tall garden gate or even a fence.

Finally a 'dor' with a difference. A sculpture of this minute dormouse rolled up asleep in a nutshell was quite
exquisite.

CBeebies, Gardening and Mr Bloom's Nursery

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:51:00 +0000

At the beginning of last year I wrote a piece on the blog about CBeebies and Gardening. The BBC has now applied even more creativity to its childrens' programming and produced an entertaining veggie puppet show with Mr Bloom's Nursery. Its worth a watch even if you don't have kids - well a short watch. Its website has a great range of games and gardening related actitivies for younger children.

At the core of the daily life of the nursery are a group of singing, talking and moving veggies with rather traditional names. There is Margaret the Cabbage and Joan the Fennel. Soft toy vegetables are rather more endearing then the usual plastic vegetables available as part of food sets. If you like the veggies on Mr Bloom's Nursery then you are bound to fall in love with those featured our kidsinthegardenshop. Each character has floppy arms and legs and a very smiley face.

Kids in the Garden Soft Toy Vegetables

Rory Radish

Tammy Tomato

Will they encourage and inspire your children to get growing and to eat vegetables? They certainly will entertain them and provide loads of fun and from the planting of little seedlings great things can grow.

Potato Grass Heads, Children’s Plant Markers and Recycling Red Noses

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:14:00 +0000

Kids’ garden activities are now a routine part of most gardening events. So with a kidsinthegarden stall at our local seedy Sunday the childrens’ gardening activities fitted neatly with me.

By popular request potato head grass heads were on offer. If you have never created these creatures here’s how we did it.

Ingredients

10-12 inches of part of a pair of tights
Sawdust (from local pet shop)
Grass seed
Stick on eyes
Plastic cup

Tie one end of the tights and add a dessert spoon full of grass seed. Top up with sawdust to form oval face shape and tie at the bottom of head. Grass seed must to at the top of the head. Create a face on the tights. Roll head in a saucer of water and keep damp. Within a couple of weeks, maybe less, a hairy grass top will show. Keep watering the grass and snip when necessary. It really is that easy.

The most popular gardening activity with the children was making plant markers, perhaps because of the immediate effect. For these I used:-

Small polystyrene balls (ping pong balls will also work)
Barbeque sticks
Drinking straws
Rubber bands to keep straw on sticks
Eyes

Assemble and let the children create their own images (use waterproof pens). Planting in the garden is, of course, optional, but highly recommended. Children love to mark ownership of any seeds and plants they may have planted.

If you still have your red nose from red nose day why not recycle it. It makes a lovely colourful plant marker.

World Book Day: A Book to Inspire your Children to Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 12:29:00 +0000

If I could only take one children's gardening book on to that desert island it would have to be 'Eddie's Garden and How to Make Things Grow' by Sarah Garland. It is a simple, homely and feel good story about a little boy growing vegetables and flowers with his family. It has held the attention of my 6 year old for the last 3 years and there is still more staying power in it.

Give your child their own plot of earth, let them dig and plant their own seeds and any child will identify with Eddie. What helps Eddie's garden to grow? Your little ones may well be able to answer that question and you certainly will because you will be reading it to them lots of time.

The story involves 3 generations of the same family. A nice touch as grandparents often help with nurturing those little green fingers. The illustrations include colourful characters from the garden. The ubiquitous robin always around when digging is on the go, wriggly worms and those evil snails. Eddie himself is inspired by the story of Jack and the Bean Stalk.

There is a useful list of Eddie's plants of 12 vegetables and edible flowers, with brief growing instructions. It is a great starter gardening book.

If you only read your children one book about gardening let it be this one. This is the time of year to get growing and sowing and this is the ideal book to read with your kids.

Growing Upwards, Spring and Ball-Proof Glass

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 18:37:00 +0000

RHS Spring and Design Show
Spring was certainly in the Air at the 2011 RHS Plant and Design Show in London yesterday. This is a gardening show which doesn’t usually have a kid’s element to it. However there were a few unexpected snippets of interest to families with young children.

Plant Heritage’s display held an amazing collection of early spring blossoms, many from ordinary gardens. It demonstrated just how much is in bloom in February and was a timely reminder to me to bring in a few cutting from branches of shrubs from the garden into the house. An opportunity for children to use their sense of smell. The stall below is an example I suspect of how we would all like our garden to look in the spring.

Mini Greenhouses

I have owned an Access mini greenhouse for about 9 years, although sadly it is at present rather empty and uncared for. It will receive some TLC and be filled with seedlings in the next few weeks. I find a mini greenhouse a good alternative for those of us with gardens too small for a grown up greenhouse.

My sister has asked for one for her birthday. I had thought that the constant presence of cricket and footballs in her garden would rule out a glass house. However I have now been assured by the Access guy at the show that the glass can withstand a hit from either. Surely a great selling point. I’ll let you know how it survives the summer.

My mini greenhouse

The theme of the show was roof top gardens or as the blurb put it 'green roofing for urban spaces'. Whilst I would not consider a roof garden to be an option for a family I loved the planting on the vertical walls. This would be great those with tiny patio gardens.

Finally I thought you may like to see the latest version of a ‘green’ car. It was spotted on the road outside the show.

Happy First Birthday. Garden Stars of the Year

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 21:56:00 +0000

We have had a great first year on the blog. When I asked my son what he had enjoyed most about our garden, without any hesitation he listed the following:-

Digging.
Looking at the vegetables and feeling how heavy they were.
Eating the vegetables.
Finding ‘bones’ in the soil.

Gardens are great spaces to reflect in and also reflect about and its good to see that his memories can be so easily recalled. Our little plot this year has been tranquil, productive and beautiful. The veg area was a great success (why oh why didn’t I start it before?).

My garden stars of the year have been:-

Very unexpectedly the french beans which were so very tasty to eat and easy to grow. So there will be more grown up the fence this year and over my son’s den.
Nasturtiums which are such good flowers for children to grow. Dare I say even better to grow than sunflowers. Ours reseeded from last year. Because of last years cold winter they took a while to get going, but then flowered until November. It was lovely having some extra peppery flavour to our salads.
There are no hostas grown in the ground in the garden as they are munched to death. But hostas in pots do survive and my Sum and Substance hosta looked wonderful this year.
My son who has really enjoyed all garden activity. When it was suggested he should draw a flower he didn't just draw the standard sunflower-type flower. He produced a whole page of Venus Flytraps, including their food. I think perhaps we have visited Kew Gardens a bit too often.

Looking forward to our 2011 garden.

Spiders' Webs, Hoar Frost and a Festive Walk

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:21:00 +0000

Spiders’ webs are great structures for children to look at, copy the patterns and to view spiders. Back in September the spiders were hard at work in the garden weaving away. It was impossible for me to pass through my archway without getting threads tangled in my hair. However by the time I got my act together to photograph some of the webs the spiders seemed to have all miraculously disappeared.

So at Christmas I was delighted to find some webs sparkling with hoar frost. The frost shows off the patterns perfectly. Apparently an orb web is the one we most commonly see and link with spiders in the UK. The spider anchors silk lines that radiate from a centre, to grass, stems and other structures. It then weaves a sticky spiral of silk around the centre. Threads are then woven round to strengthen the outside of the web. It is the stickiness of those threads that attracts water from the air so making water droplets. There is more information on spiders and some activities for kids by The British Council.

That same day the hoar frost was so amazing that the camera was a must for a walk around the garden and then further afield. This was certainly a snowy glittery Christmas for us.

What to do with all those Leaves in the Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 20:35:00 +0000

Making Leaf Mould

We have been making leaf mould in our garden and have done so for the last couple of years. It is an easy gardening activity for children; one that gets them into the garden in the autumn. Leaf mould is organic and involves no carbon footprint. It is simply a case of raking up the leaves, bagging them and storing them, and then waiting.

Here’s how we do it. The garden has leaves mainly from Silver Birch, Goat Willow, Oak and a little bit of Acer. We rake them into piles and bag them up. I know that many people use black plastic sacks. We recycle and use the plastic coverings you get when clothes are returned from the dry cleaners. We like it best if the leaves are dry as they are not so cold to handle. As water is an essential ingredient for leaf mould we place couple of holes in the plastic bag and the add water.

A couple of times I have left some bags of leaves under shrubs and find that as the plastic begins to disintegrate and worms worm their way into the leafy mixture the leaves return themselves to the garden with very little help.

The filled sacks then spend the following 18 months in an old dustbin in the garden. We spread the leaf mould out onto the soil early spring as a kind of mulch. This is another gardening job for the children help with. I have also sieved the leaf mould and used it with potting compost for transplanting seedlings.

Last years leaf mould

The people at Gardening Organic have more detailed advice about what to do.

But why oh why is it called leaf mould? There is nothing messy or mouldy about it. It doesn’t smell and once rotted down turns into a lovely friable material. The name conveys up images of fungus and stained walls and must surely put some people off. How about calling it leaf compost or leafy soil? Love to hear your suggestions.

Let me know what you do with the leaves in your garden. Please please don’t say you take your leaves to the local rubbish tip. We find it so simple to recycle them inside our garden and hope you can too.

The London Wetland Centre: A Great Garden in the Heart of London.

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 22:34:00 +0000

If you hadn’t thought of a wetland as a garden, then please think again. All the elements of natural beauty, native planting, seasonal interest, open space, and water are present in a wetland. For me and for my son the London Wetland Centre is a fantastic garden. We had one of our many visits there this week and I thought I would share with you some of the simple pleasures he loves there.

The trail of the duck feet marked on the ground leading to explore the children’s adventure play area.
The mock duck nest and its eggs, together with the ‘dinosaur’ bones.
The new webcam set up in a pond, filming both on top and under the water. He spent ages operating this, focusing, zooming in and out, and looking at the screen to see what he had found.
The pathways that lead off the main pathways and then rejoin later on.
The willow dens, both when they are covered in leaves and in their winter state.
The foot operated water pump in the new rain garden.

And for me there is always something new. This time it was the new rain garden. Opened by Alan Titchmarsh in September it shows how gardens can be sustainable by capturing and using rainfall. It forms a series of rain gardens, fed from the roof of a pavilion. This is made from a converted cargo container and provides living space for animals and insects in its walls and a green roof. There is a prism to view the green roof.

I do not have a full photo of the garden to show you as was so bowled over by the fact that a flower meadow was still flowering in November that I concentrated on the flowers. I have since learnt that they are from Pictorial Meadows. They provide an unique colourful meadow-flower seed mixes that rapidly produce a naturally vibrant display with an extended flowering season. The mixes contain no grass and all the green foliage you see are part of the plants.

So Wetlands are not all about birds, though there is presently a bittern at the London Wetland Centre and plenty of other wildfowl to see and things to do. And, oh yes, there are also at least the six water voles we saw at the Wetland Centre in Arundel this summer.

Gardens to Visit with Your Children in October

noreply@blogger.com (Lynda@kidsinthegarden) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:32:00 +0000

The Eden Project Cornwall

Thousands of families will currently be thinking about where to go in the autumn half term holiday with their kids. If you live in London, the South East or Scotland there are some great ideas on garden destinations on kidsinthegarden . The winter garden at Hillier’s garden in Hampshire will be looking particularly good. The Kids Guide has some suggestions for gardens to visit in the North West of the UK.

Most of the RHS and National Trust gardens will have some sort of family event and/or trail available at this time of year. There will also still be plenty to see if you have a botanical garden located close to you.

A good choice this time of year is a visit an arboretum or a garden with woodland. Nothing beats a good play in the leaves. Here the opportunity to pick up leaves, conkers and fir cones should keep everyone amused. We always come away with our pockets full of precious collections. The Woodland Trust has an ‘autumn colour’ search category for its index of 1,000 plus woodland sites across the country.

The Royal Parks in London are all free to visit and all have gardens and/or woodland gardens. As a family we will be visiting Kensington Gardens next week, both the Peter Pan-themed Diana Memorial playground and the outdoor exhibition by Anish Kapoor of large reflective metal structures. I am intrigued to see what my son will make of them.

I love visiting a Wetlands Centre this time of year. Not only is it a good time to see the winter birds just arrived in the UK you also get the evocative sound of rustling wind in the reed beds. So they are great places to play sound games with the children.

If you have a favourite garden to visit this time of year please leave a comment and share it with us all.