Where the tiny dwell
Create a mini-garden with your child
If you think your children or grandchildren are spending too much time playing video games or texting on their cell phones, why not encourage them to take a break from technology and plant a mini-garden with you. The concept of wee creatures frolicking in a mini-garden spurs the imaginations of young and old alike, and planting a mini-garden opens the gate to an endless world of fun.
Create your mini-garden around a theme. A fairy garden that is home to a wee fairy is always popular, as well as a dinosaur garden with a Tyrannosaurus Rex or Triceratops roaming freely. Other fun themes include a hobbit, wild animal or angel garden.
The garden can be as small or as large as you wish. Find a pot that is just the right size to hold a cute fairy and her plants, or choose a larger pot to hold an entire village of fairies and their plants. Even a basket can be used. Line it with plastic and poke a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Deep containers, such as a galvanized tub with holes drilled in the bottom, work well outdoors because they hold moisture longer. Just be sure to have a tray beneath the garden to catch drainage water.
With the increasing popularity of mini-gardens, craft stores carry a wide variety of tiny creatures and animals, along with other miniature items to make your garden fanciful.
Half the fun of mini-gardens is the hunt for interesting items to make your garden interesting. Take a nature walk with your child to collect tiny rocks, twigs, and other interesting items. Pebbles or shells can form walkways, and container lids or a round mirror can become a pond. A small milk carton can be transformed into a fairy cottage and decorated on the outside with rocks, leaves or sticks. Add a moss roof, and your cottage is complete.
Helping create one-ofa-kind fences, cottages or bridges out of found materials is challenging, yet rewarding, and is a way to include Dad and Grandpa in the garden’s construction. Fences can be built from twigs or popsicle sticks glued and painted a whimsical color. You can even create a rock wall around the garden
by gluing together small rocks. Larger rocks placed among the plants will give a dinosaur garden a true prehistoric look.
To create your mini-garden, choose plants with small leaves that will make the garden look life-like. Succulents add texture and interest, while alyssum, lobelia and dwarf marigolds add pops of color. Herbs also work well in a mini-garden, too. Once plants are added, sphagnum moss or colored gravel make good ground covers to help keep the soil moist.
Set your finished mini-garden in a location on your patio that will receive morning sun and afternoon shade. The garden can even be kept indoors near a window. When watering, add a spoonful of fertilizer to the water to keep the plants healthy.
Tie your fairy garden to story time with read-aloud books such as “Fairy Houses” by Tracy Kane, “Olivia and the Fairy Princess” by Ian Falconer, and “The Very Fairy Princess” by Julie Andrews.
For a dinosaur garden, share “Danny the Dinosaur” by Sid Hoff, “If the Dinosaurs Came Back” by
Bernard Most, and “Digging up Dinosaurs” by Aliki. “Teeny Tiny” by Tomie dePaola, “The Elves and the Shoemaker” by Jacob Grimm and Jim Lamarche and “An Elf for Christmas” by Michael Garland match perfectly with a hobbit garden.
If your child shows an interest in gardening once their mini-garden is complete, you can always plant another mini-garden with a different theme or move on to a larger garden in your yard.
According to statistics, the more children play outdoors, the less likely they are to become overweight. Gardening increases a child’s self-esteem, helps them develop closer relationships with family members, and gives them a sense of ownership when they create their own garden and tend it.
Designing a mini-garden and planning what to grow encourages creativity and imagination. Plus, when there’s a mini-garden to tend, you’ll never hear that plaintive wail, “There’s nothing to do.”
Once the gardening bug bites, it will last a lifetime. Warning…like potato chips, it’s hard to have “just one” mini-garden.
Happy gardening.