Gardening Fun for Everyone

Most gardeners don’t have to even think twice about getting outside and spending time in their garden. Kids, however, might need to be persuaded. Teaching children about the plants in your garden, and the nature surrounding you can be a really fun task. Especially if you have interesting ways of doing so! Below are some ideas to get kids involved in your gardening adventures this Spring and Summer.

Butterfly Bath

You will need:

• A small container
• Sand
• Soil (our PlantZone is perfect!)
• Water

Similar to a bird bath, these butterfly baths are perfect for attracting these beautiful pollinators to your garden! Take your small container and fill it with sand. Mix in a bit of soil. Create a small hole in the center of the container and fill it with water. Put the container near some flowers in your garden and watch the magic as butterflies stop by to take a dip in your nutrient-rich butterfly bath!

Painted Garden Stones

You will need:

• Any size stone, rock, or pebble
• Paints
• Paint brushes

For this particular project, you can go wild with your imagination! Once you have all your paints and brushes ready to go, you and your kiddos can pop a squat and get to painting. You can paint stones to look like animals, silly faces, flowers, the list goes on! These painted stones will not only serve as a beautiful decoration for your garden but will hold precious memories of the time you spent together creating them.

Fairy Houses

You will need:

• Sticks/twigs/any building material
• Moss
• Leaves
• Flowers
• Pebbles

Fairy houses are a wonderful way to let imagination connect with nature. These houses should be made of items that can be found in your yard and are a great way to teach children how to treat nature with respect and to collect sustainably. These can be sticks you find on the ground, leaves that have fallen off trees, moss that you find on some rocks. Really anything! When I was younger, I would build fairy houses in my Grammy’s yard. I would leave them overnight, and the next morning I would have a little chocolate or sweet waiting for me from the fairies to thank me for making them a place to stay! This is so fun for you and your kids to create together.

Wildflower Seed Bombs

You will need:

• 6 pieces of construction paper (you can use all the same color or multiple colors if you’d like!)
• 3-5 packages of local wildflowers
• Blender
• Scissors
• Water

For this project you will be making flower bombs that you can plant in a nutrient-rich soil (such as our GroZone soil) and watch bloom!

1. Cut your construction paper into 1 inch squares.

2. Put each pieces of construction paper (when cut) into a separate dish, then fill the dish with water and soak for 20 minutes.

3. Take the paper out and ring it out about ½ way (you don’t want it to be too wet, but you don’t want it to dry too much). Put the piece into a blender and pulse it to a pulp. Repeat this step with all 6 of your pieces.

4. Sprinkle seeds into a bowl with each piece of paper and squish into a ball.

5. Let this dry overnight.

6. Plant these anywhere you want and watch them grow!!!

These are just a few ideas, but there are endless amounts of activities to do with your kids outdoors this spring and summer. Make sure to also stop by some local farmers’ markets and festivals! Get outdoors and enjoy the beauty of the Pacific Northwest!