A Child's Garden

Did you play in a garden when you were a child? Do you garden with children or grandchildren now? Or do you have little visitors that you'd love to spend some fresh-air time with? I may have a few great ideas for you.

If you follow my little musings here, you know I love the OSU Extension publications about horticulture. But the best educational sites want to talk about public gardens that will interest children - a great idea, of course, but why should we leave our own homes to interest children in nature? I want to be able to walk out my door and into the imaginative world children visit every day, don't you?

I've learned about some really fun garden designs I'd like to try this summer:

• A teepee corner - using about six tall bamboo poles, at least 8' long (1"x1" posts will do but there must not be any rough edges to splinter little hands), plant them in a circle with the tops touching and lash them together a short way from the top.  The design should allow enough room inside the circle for a child to sit comfortably.  If I plant some runner beans, morning glories or sweet peas at the base of each pole, by mid-summer it will be a shady, private space just perfect for a small person's hideaway. 
• A playhouse - plant sunflowers in a square or rectangle, spaced closer than the seed packet suggests with a "doorway" left unplanted. Around the square, plant some pole beans to climb the sunflowers. To a child, this could be a fort or a house or a secret retreat with birds coming to eat the ripening seeds. 
• A Pizza Garden - divide a circular bed into "slices" and plant your favorite child's favorite pizza tastes: roma and cherry tomatoes, green peppers, onions, thyme, oregano, basil. Grow some calendula for a topping of edible flowers on the pizza. 
• Spell their name in flowers - it's amazing how much of the alphabet can be found in the garden. Asters, Bachelor Buttons, Calendula, Daisy, Echinacea, Forget-Me-Not, Gallardia, Hollyhock, Iris, Johnny JumpUp, Kale, Lamb's Ear, Marigold, Nasturtium, Obedient Plant, Petunia, Queen Anne's Lace, Rose, Sunflower, Tansy, Ursinia, Verbena, Wormwood, Xeranthemum, Yarrow, Zinnia. What wonderful memories any child will have of a garden named just for them!
• Instead of a child's sized garden, plant a Giant's Garden - there are varieties of many vegetables that could qualify for county fair prizes.  Try Crimson Giant Radish, Dawn Giant Leek, Sweet Chinese Giant Pepper or Atlantic Giant Pumpkin. Read the seed packet carefully so you choose a giant that can be started indoors and will be harvested before the cold arrives in September/October.
• Help an older child, discover all the sensory plants - think of all the senses: touch, smell, sight, even hearing.  Plant fuzzy plants like Lamb's Ear, smelly plants like Lavender, unusual foliage like Partridge Feather, noisy plants that move and rustle in the breeze like Ornamental Grass. With a good  bench in such a garden, a young person's imagination can roam entirely new worlds.

Have you planted a Child's Garden?  What did you grow? Will you share with us in the Comments below?