Garden Themes for Kids
Most kids enjoy planting seeds and watching them sprout. In fact, allowing children to become involved in the planning, caring, and harvesting of their own garden helps them develop a better understanding for the natural world. One of the best ways to encourage enthusiasm for gardening is by creating a garden theme, especially one with which appeals to the senses. Kids not only enjoy plants having various shapes and colors; aromatic plants are pleasing to them as well.
They also love touching soft, fuzzy plants and eating sweet, juicy fruits; however, make sure your child is aware of the dangers associated with poisonous plants and steer clear of them whenever possible. Adding features that create various sounds such as water fountains, windmills, and chimes will also spark interest in children.
When it comes to choosing a theme for your child’s garden, let them decide. Children have a natural gift with regards to the imagination, and this is all that is needed. A theme can be based on a favorite game, story character, place, animal, hobby, or even an educational focus. Anything goes; there are endless possibilities. For instance, maybe your child loves playing the game Candy Land, and of course, what child doesn’t like candy? Turn this passion into a theme for his or her garden. Add plants and objects relating to the theme; in fact, you could even use the game board as a reference for characters and such.
Plant possibilities for your candy land garden might include chocolate cosmos, ‘peppermint stick’ zinnia, chocolate mint, fountain grass, candytuft, peppermint, chocolate flower, sweet alyssum, candy corn plant, ginger, wild cinnamon, candystick tulip, and chocolate vine. Enclose the garden with a picket fence and include meandering paths lined with plastic candy canes. You could even use cocoa beans for mulch as an extra touch.
A storybook theme can be accomplished from choosing plants and objects which are associated with a particular story or favorite character. Take, for instance, the story of Cinderella. Include pumpkins, lady slippers, maidenhair fern, slipper orchid, and ‘Cinderella’ butterfly weed. Maybe your child enjoys stories relative to frogs such as The Frog Prince or The Princess and the Frog. Include plants related to the story and accent with garden frogs and toadstools.
Do you live on a farm? Lots of children enjoy playing in and around barns; why not create a barnyard garden? Barnyard gardens could include rustic benches along winding paths of hollyhocks, daisies, milkweed, buttercups, and blanket flowers. Old fences, ladders, and even sunflowers make lovely backdrops for trumpet vines and morning glories. Sunflowers are also a good way to give seclusion to the garden by planting them around the outer edges. Water accents might include half-barrel ponds or even troughs. Other plants for a barnyard theme include hens and chicks, bee balm, flowering tobacco, goat’s beard, cornflower, lamb’s ear, eggplant, strawflower, colt’s foot, peacock orchid, gooseberry, and hay-scented fern.
All kids love animals; why not make it a theme for the garden. Plants having interesting animal names can be incorporated such as monkey flower, tiger lily, butterfly bush, buffalo grass, dogwood, bearberry, ostrich fern, snapdragon, foxglove, cat mint, piggy-back plant, turtlehead, butterfly weed, owl’s clover, toadflax, and rattlesnake grass. There are endless possibilities for this one. Include ornamental animals with the chosen plants as well. Many children are intrigued by dinosaurs; use this as a theme for a garden. Include plants such as conifers, ginkgos, ferns, mosses, magnolias, water lilies, and palms. Add dinosaur footprints, water fountains, interesting fossils, and stones along paths.
Professional-themed gardens are related to careers or even hobbies with which children are interested in pursuing. For instance, maybe your child wants to become a firefighter. Suitable plants for this might include a smoke tree, burning bush, red hot poker, firecracker plant, prairie smoke, blazing star and firethorn. Mulch plants with crushed brick. Accents such as old fire boots, hats, ladders, and hoses can be intermingled throughout this garden as well. Do you have a potential seamstress in the making? Try a garden full of button bush, ‘Adam’s needle’ yucca, silver lace vine, ribbon grass, lace shrub, basket-of-gold, pincushion flower, bachelor’s button, cotton, wooly thyme, and possibly even a bead tree.
Scatter buttons of various sizes and colors within the mulch and accent the garden with bows and baskets. A lot of kids love looking at the stars and dream of becoming astronauts. How about a garden themed around outer space? Implement small planets, stars, and rockets throughout the garden. Add plants such as cosmos, rocket plant, star cactus, moonflower, Jupiter’s beard, Venus fly trap, golden star, moonwort, and star grass. Is your child into music? Include plants such as bell flower, bugleweed, trumpet flower, coralbells, drumstick allium, rock rose, and trumpet vine.
If you have young children, an educational theme can make learning more fun. For instance, an alphabet garden can help teach kids their ABC’s in a fun way. Include enough plants to cover all 26 letters of the alphabet, allowing them to decide which ones. Signs can be made to identify each plant along with an interesting object that begins with the same letter. Examples of plants might include alyssum, balloon flower, cosmos, daisy, elephant ears, forget-me-nots, gladiolus, hyacinth, impatiens, Johnny jump-ups, knotweed, lily, marigold, nasturtium, ostrich fern, petunia, Queen Anne’s lace, rose, sunflower, thyme, umbrella plant, verbena, watermelon, xenia, yarrow, and zinnia. You can also teach kids about colors by implementing small areas that are designated specifically to a particular color. Choose plants on individual colors and allow your child to label the areas with the appropriate color.
Children love nature as well as using their imagination; and with a little encouragement, these can be put together to create a fun-filled garden of their very own.
