The Children's Garden

One of the best things we have ever done for the children was put in a garden just for them.  When we lived in Atlanta I loved taking the children to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, especially the Children's Garden.  Years ago I cut a children's garden plan out of a magazine in hopes that we would one day install one.  The summer after we moved here we did!  I love this garden so much and so do the children.  It has become a destination in our own yard!  We play, create, picnic, learn and read in the garden.  

We have had to change some of the plantings because we have more shade than some of the plants in the plan could tolerate.  We add to the garden every year and change things that don't work. As the children get older they help more and more in the garden and it is clear they know more about gardening now than I did when we first began!  I should be really clear that I know very little about gardening and this has been a true learning experience for us all.

  I thought I would share some of the pictures from when we first installed the garden. 

We put the garden in the very back corner of our yard.  It was all grass so we had to rent a sod cutter and shape the garden.  

In the middle of the garden is a gigantic sandbox.  Bryce built it using a plan from a Martha Stewart Baby magazine.

What's nice about the sandbox is that lots of children can comfortably fit in it and because it is high it doesn't get really dirty.  We do keep it covered though, when it's not in use.

The first year.

P.S.  I'm really excited to share the garden and I want to document as much as I can of the garden, so I'm sure there will be lots more gardening related posts. Wow, I just used the word garden three times in one sentence.  I guess I am excited!

New York Botanical Garden

When the children were younger, and we still lived in Atlanta, I took them to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens all the time.  It was one of our favorite places to go! I've wanted to take the children to the New York Botanical Gardens for 10 years and we finally made it happen last week.

In Atlanta, we spent most of our time in the children's garden (which is wonderful!) and so we went to the children's garden first thing once we finally arrived (we took an accidental detour!).   However, a combination of the children being much older and, truth be told, not finding the children's garden as interactive and engaging as the Atlanta one, we quickly learned that we were better off exploring the rest of the gardens instead of the children's area.  It was just as well as there was plenty to see and do in the rest of the garden!

The garden had an exhibit of Frida Kahlo's work and this theme was spread throughout the garden. We were delighted to discover that they even added her eyebrows to one of the fun topiary caterpillars.

We also very much enjoyed the Family Vegetable Garden.  It was huge and had vegetables growing everywhere one looked!  It was fantastic inspiration.

Of course, we had to check out the rose garden!

I've found that the children are great company when doing this sort of thing and we all find something to enjoy when we explore new places.  I was so happy to spend this day together!

A work in progress

We've been working pretty diligently in the children's garden and it's really looking good. Seeds are planted, new tree cookies are installed, and everything is cleaned up!

If the truth is to be told I love this garden as much as the children do. I love working in it and I love watching the children play in it. So I have been a little distraught as to what to do in one corner of the garden that has struggled the last year or two. This area of the garden has a drainage issue. The clay soil really holds onto the water and I believe that it is suffocating the roots of our plants. Up until this last weekend this is what it looked like.

A few of the plants were coming up again but I knew better than to replant without trying to work on the soil. After some research I found an article on amending the soil to help with better drainage and we decided to give it a try.

We started by adding sand, soil conditioner and lime to the soil.

Bryce then begin tilling the area. However, he commented that the tiller was not heavy enough and he could use some extra weight.

Next thing I knew I looked over to discover the children bringing over a heavy stone! They had overheard Bryce and decided to help solve the problem.

I fear that I would have told them that it would never work, but Bryce went and got straps and strapped the rock onto the tiller. I love that he gave their idea credit by trying it out. And guess what? It worked!

Because we added so much material the area is a little raised, which I hope will also help with the drainage. When we were all done with the soil, we planted blueberry bushes. I can't tell you how excited we are about having berries on our very own shrubs!

P.S. I'm working on organizing my labels for the blog. I've started with the children's garden. In the column to the right I have a label where all the posts I've done concerning the children's garden are, hopefully, in one place (including the plan).

Children's Gardening book

Princess Chamomile's Garden is a book that I wish we had when we first planted the children's garden. It would be the perfect book to kick start the planning and planting of a child's very own "my-sort-of-garden." Even though our garden is well under way we have really enjoyed this book about Princess Chamomile and the garden she creates.

When Princess Chamomile discovers that the royal gardens are just to big for her to work in

she decides that she needs a "my-sort-of garden." The story takes us through her planning, permission seeking and planting of the garden.

Every time the children and I read this story we spend time pouring over the plans for her garden. We talk about how our garden is alike to the one she planned (we have a lot of what she has just on a much smaller scale!) and what we would like that she has and that we don't (a hopscotch pad and a shed).

I like how the story explains that the planting of the garden, "didn't take hours and it didn't take days. It took many long months." I think that this is an important point for children to try to understand about gardening since it's really not in their nature to be patient! I also appreciate how Princess Chamomile works just as hard as the royal gardener in the planning, planting and caring for her garden.

The illustrations in this book are delightful and of course we loved that Princess Chamomile and her family are all mice!

P.S. I'm sorry the pictures aren't really easy to see. If you click on the picture it will get much bigger.

P.S.S. Harris also really wants to add a tree to our garden that is hollowed out so that we can sit under it like in the last picture... Hmmm...

Tic Tac Toe in the Garden

At the beginning of the summer I spotted this post on Ohdeedoh that featured a children's garden in Virginia.  As you may have realized, I am a sucker for children' s gardens!  One of the (many) things I loved about this garden was the tic tac toe game they had created and so we set out to recreate something similar in our own children's garden.

We used stone that we already had and Bryce cut it using his tile saw.  I found cast iron critters at Amazon and sprayed them with clear Rustoleum to stop them from rusting since I plan on keeping them outside. We tucked in some moss in the crevices of the game and hope that more will grow!  I love that it adds a bit of whimsy to the garden!

The Children's Garden

I've realized that I haven't posted this summer about the children's garden.  We've had some setbacks that have included bunnies, birds and not enough rainfall!  However, the garden still remains one of my very favorite things and I hope that the children still feel that way too.

The bunnies keep eating the morning glories and so they haven't been able to climb the tunnel as quickly as they usually do but I think we finally might have that under control.  The birds ate all of our blueberries even though we put a net on top of them.  Suggestions?  

Also, the birds (squirrels?) have dug up every single sunflower seed we have planted!  Super frustrating but we will persevere! On the bright side, we have read in the garden, blown bubbles, built sand tunnels, had picnics and enjoyed the flowers.  Here are some scenes from around the garden...

Chalkboard Plant Markers

It's raining here again today! This has to be the wettest spring I've ever experienced! The upside is that everything is very green. The downside is that the children's garden is very, very wet. The spot in our yard where the garden is located holds water and I'm worried about root rot. Our seedlings did not do all that great- it was very hit or miss. I guess that a ton of water plus not a lot of sun equals struggling new plants!

A couple of weekends ago we did manage to put out our plant markers. Several years ago we went to a children's garden that had every plant marked with these wonderful chalkboard plant markers. I inquired as to the source of the markers and was pleasantly surprised to find that the distributer was literally in the town next to us! You must use special waterproof chalkboard markers but the writing easily comes off with alcohol. The children have fun coloring pictures on the markers, and I think that it is a great learning tool.  Here are just a few of them...