Miniature garden.
grandchildren to entertain. It’ s wonderful to enthuse kids, hoping that they will develop a lifelong interest in plants. Donate a small patch of garden and help them design the content. Have you heard of a zoo garden, for example? The names of the plants can represent animals and each can be labelled, perhaps using a model of the animal too.
Here are a few easy-to-grow, child-friendly examples:
• The common name lamb’ s ear refers to Stachys byzantina, a drought-tolerant evergreen perennial that will gradually form a carpet of soft, fluffy lambs’ ears. Both leaves and stems are covered in white, woolly hairs.
• Bergenia cordifolia, known as elephant’ s ears, is an easy-to-grow, evergreen groundcover, with big, tough leaves that look just slightly like the ears of Jumbo.
• Catnip( Nepeta cataria) is a member of the mint family, and cats love to roll around in the aromatic foliage and flowers thanks to the chemical compound Nepetalactone, which is also an insect repellent.
Around two-thirds of cats become euphoric as they release the substance from the plant.
• Dogwoods( Cornus sanguinea or alba) are shrubs which are brilliant in winter. Cut them down to the ground in very early spring and the new growth will give you vertical stems of colour next year. Some varieties have stems that are orange, some red, purple and yellow. They’ re easy to grow at the back of your children’ s zoo garden.
• Fleabane, Erigeron karvinskianus, was so named because it was believed the dried leaves and flowers repelled fleas. This delightful little daisy-like perennial loves to self-seed into cracks and dry places.
Try building a garden gnome village or a magical miniature garden in a bottle, ceramic dish, box or even a shoe. Diminutive spaces can be huge in terms of appeal. Take a tiny world and become absorbed by the endless possibilities that microgardening presents. It’ s not only the kids who will be enthralled. Most importantly, have fun!
Miniature garden.
Photo by Jürgen Scheeff, Unsplash
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