Get Your Kids Interested in Gardening: Great Projects for All Ages

The best way to get your children interested in gardening is by getting them involved with the whole process. This includes picking out plants, helping plant and water them, weeding when necessary, and harvesting at the end of a season. There are many different projects that you can do with kids to show them how rewarding it can be!

• Plant a garden with your children and let them watch them grow! You and your child can enjoy every stage of the process. 

• Make a bird feeder together and hang it outside on the porch, the front yard or the garden. Or buy blank clay flower pots and let your children paint a masterpiece. 

•  Create an outdoor reading area in your garden for kids by finding a shady spot. 

•  Get out into nature with them - go on walks around the neighborhood, take hikes through state parks, visit local farms where you can pick fresh produce from trees and bushes while learning about how plants grow!

• Build garden art together using items found around the home (e.g., cardboard boxes, paint cans).

Build a fairy garden! These miniature gardens consist of small landscapes filled with small plants, and trinkets designed to “attract” fairies to your garden.

Fairy Garden Ingredients

• Potting mix

• A container with drainage holes

• Plants, twigs, and/or flowers

• Pea gravel, pebbles, glass marbles

• Mini garden decorations such as a fairy house, mini table and chairs, and a fence

Theme — 

Decide your theme first. Are you going with English cottage, a forest backdrop, or a tree house? Pick whatever theme matches your existing garden or your imagination. Whatever style you choose will help decide which accessories and plants to fill your garden with after it’s created.

Some themes include:

• Wooded wonderland

• Tree interiors

• Fairy home

• Castle

• Fairy city

Select Your Container — 

Choose almost any container for your project. Whatever you pick will need drainage holes because you’ll be using live plants. Glass bowls, terrariums, and terra cotta pots all work well.

Other containers include:

• Flower pots

• Tin buckets

• Wheelbarrows

• Wagons

• Wooden boxes

• Large bowls

• Baby tubs

Make sure your container measures at least six inches deep and approximately 14 inches across to accommodate enough features and plants to build a proper fairy garden. Winding Creek Nursery and Garden Center carries everything you will need to create a fairy garden! 

Building Your Garden

Choose composted soil full of organic matter and small bark pieces to lend the most “alive” look to your fairy garden. Ensure proper drainage by adding a layer of pea gravel to the bottom of your container. It’s also a good idea to include a layer of charcoal to keep the garden fresh.

Fill the container with potting soil and add bark, pebbles, or moss on top to create paths for the fairies.

Plants —

Narrow your plant selection by considering where your fairy garden is located. If outdoors, will the garden be in full or partial sun? If indoors, pick your plants accordingly because some plants don’t do well indoors. Choose miniature plants for your landscape and flowers for color and visual interest. Select options with interesting shapes and texture. Don’t overcrowd the container because you’ll be adding additional items and accessories to make your garden a fairy home. However, clumping plants together in some areas make for good fairy hiding places. Look for two-to-three-inch plant pots with low-growing and small-leaf plants that will be easy to grow and maintain. And as always, use your imagination. Some plants can be pruned to look like tiny trees. Rosemary is a fine example of this strategy.

Good plants for fairy gardens include:

• Ferns

• Baby tears (for ground cover)

• Ornamental strawberry (another ground cover option)

• Wooly thyme (more ground cover)

• Miniature roses

• Primroses

• Calendula

• Rosemary

• Tiny violas

• Succulents

• Small bonsai trees

• Ivy

• Licorice plants

• Accessories 

Here comes the fun part. Decorate your garden with small mushroom stools, little benches, a fairy house, fences (popsicle sticks can be repurposed nicely as fairy fences), and fairy lights. Make your own accents or buy online – there’s plenty of sources, and a list follows below.

Some popular fairy garden decorations include miniature versions of:

• Chairs

• Trellises

• Birdhouses

• Toadstools

• Birdbaths

• Watering cans

• Pails

• Lanterns

• Animals

Don’t forget the fairies themselves!

For make your own elements, use sculpting clay to make mushrooms or a table, wire sticks together for a small fence, design a mini garden gazing ball with a marble hot glued to a small stick or golf tee. Customize a small birdhouse by gluing pebbles to the roof and moss to the siding. Make a birdbath and glue a small terracotta pot to a saucer.

One cute do-it-yourself container idea is to take a large broken terra cotta flower pot, and insert the broken pieces into the soil as steps leading to the top of the fairy kingdom.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to getting kids excited about gardening! Stop by Winding Creek Nursery and Garden Center for a variety of  trees, shrubs, annuals, perennials, and vegetable plants as well as home and garden decor. Our certified staff and Illinois Certified Nurseryman can answer all your landscaping questions. They're happy to help you with anything from designing a garden in your backyard, or planting an herb planter for the kitchen window sill. Contact us today to schedule a consultation! Visit our website or call us at (630) 553-7211.

Sources:

https://www.installitdirect.com/learn/how-to-create-a-fairy-garden/