Sneaking a little fun and whimsy into your garden

I have always liked the outdoors and I can seriously remember when I would lift up the stone under our outdoor faucet almost every day (at least for a time in my childhood) to find creepy crawlies and the like.

Who's watching?  Kids love surprises in the garden

I try to remember this fascination with the little things when I work with kids in the garden. Parents should remember that kids naturally love to dig in the dirt and explore things so they should give kids independence to spend time relaxing and observing it and even drawing it if they're interested.

My kids haven't always loved gardening along side me, but have found their own avenues to explore it. When my daughter was in 1st grade, I thought she might like to help me plant some succulents and I quickly realized that I needed to give her some control. So, I let her manage where everything went. She proceeded to take the purple flowers containers I had purchased and created a 3D picture out of the plants with the gray succulents lined up to create a visual stem shape and the seven purple flowered plants creating a flower shape. It was something I just wouldn't have thought of doing.

Then, instead of doing following the agenda I had come up with, she decided she wanted to decorate the garden. "OK. That's cool,"I thought. "This could be interesting."

A little castle peeks out from amidst
the greenery.

She then got out some of her old toys and I got out some epoxy and we started to glue her old toys to things and place them around the garden. By the end, we had all of these cute little things there to make me smile when I gardened. It was really nice. There was a plastic frog that was attached to a bamboo pole, a little rock with googly eyes peeking amidst the greenery. So fun. It all took about a half hour. Kids usually don't have patience for that long...usually about 15 minutes. But because she was in control, she kept at it.

So I ended up with a very enjoyable environment to work within...Some of these decorations are still in place and they still make me happy.

Anyway, if you have any questions about working with kids in your garden, please make a comment. Also, I'm happy to answer any questions you have about plants if I'm able. I have gained a lot of knowledge over the years just through reading and doing.