Create an Outdoor Garden with the Kids this Spring!

Take advantage of a beautiful day by learning outside! 

It is great for kids to get outside and play in the garden but it’s even better when they can play with the garden! Including plants in your garden that are suitable for kids to use in their play is a great way to encourage them to be outside – playing, interacting and learning with nature.

Be sure to include many different types of plants to ensure a variety of activities. For instance, including some hardy vines and creepers in your garden will provide an endless supply of crowns for kings, fairies and the like. Try Star Jasmin or Hardenbergia/Coral Pea.

Kids can spend hours in the yard concocting potions from plants, water, who knows what else! Plants with an interesting scent from flowers or leaves are always fun for creating potions. Try Lavender, Pineapple Sage, or Mint. Mint grows like a weed so the kids can pick as much as they like!

Kids love picking bunches of flowers to give to someone they love, or just to brighten their day. Choose some hardy flowering perennials that take little maintenance, or annuals that easily self-seed each Spring. Some suggestions include Daisies or Geraniums for a perennial, and Cosmos, Forget Me Nots, Calendula, Nasturtiums, and Borage for self-seeding annuals.

There is no better way to teach children where food comes from than to grow it themselves. Plus it’s fun to collect some home grown goodness to snack on. Choose easy to grow fruit or veggies that you know your children enjoy; beginning with those the kids can eat right off the plant for fast snacking while playing.  Try strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, beans, or cherry tomatoes.

A fort is one of the best backyard play areas for a kid, but if you don’t have one you can always grow one! 
As simple as a circle of sunflowers or a creeper growing over an arched tunnel, hiding among the plants is lots of fun. You could try: Giant Sunflowers – plant in a circle to make a hiding spot, climbing beans – set up a teepee support and grow a bean cubby, or vines and creepers – build an arched tunnel and grow evergreen creepers over it for a more permanent cubby house.

Growing something a bit funny or weird can always get the kids interested. Maybe it is a funny looking flower, or an unusual looking veggie, something a little different is a fun addition to the garden.

Even if you don’t have a garden, many of the smaller, playful plants will grow in pots on a window sill or balcony so there is no reason why everyone can’t enjoy playing with plants!