Gardening with kids

Many children love being outdoors and are fascinated by the idea of growing plants, but waiting for things to grow can be a tall order for little ones. National Children’s Gardening Week was started to capture children’s enthusiasm for being outside while the weather is warm, focusing on activities that have instant results. At this time of year, throughout the UK, families can sow all their favourites types of plants without having to worry about the weather, or needing any complicated set-ups.

Gardening also has multiple benefits for children and families - it can teach children a sense of responsibility and patience, help reduce their screen-time, provide a calm and thoughtful place to spend time, and also can promote healthy eating. Exposure to the different textures, smells and sounds engages all their senses, while watching the growth of plants they’ve sown themselves, can help build self-esteem.

Their website has loads of ideas for gardening fun from activity sheets, guides to growing cress heads and grass caterpillars, to building hedgehog feeding stations, rock painting bugs and more.

And if you don’t have access to a garden, don’t worry - there are lots of ways to get your child involved in indoor gardening. You can use a balcony, steps, a patio or even window boxes for growing spaces. You can check out some of our other indoor gardening ideas we’ve written about before.

Barnardo’s Gardens

At Barnardo’s we support vulnerable children and young people in a wide variety of ways. Across the country our services have fantastic gardens, which play a key role in supporting children, families and the wider community.

Watling Lodge

a

Watling Lodge is an Arts and Crafts house set on top of a medieval fort in Falkirk in Scotland, and is home to Barnardo’s Axis service, which supports young people affected by substance use and other complex challenges.

The garden has a wild woodland area which is open to the local community, and is core to events like their family day and are used for educational treasure hunts and simply having fun. Groups can adopt vegetable beds and there is an outdoor classroom area used by a local infant school. This year a grant from Buglife meant it was possible to plant 550 additional wildflowers to encourage pollinators, enhance the diversity and bring more colour into the garden.

There are regular wildlife visitors too: if you’re lucky, deer, squirrels and foxes can be seen and there are many birds including wrens, robins, nuthatches and woodpeckers.

Bay6

a

Our Bay6 service in Lancashire, England provides emergency accommodation and support for young people aged 16-24, helping to prepare them for independent living.

They have developed a gorgeous garden for everyone at the service to enjoy, with inspiring quotes on signs, a wall of positive messages and photos, and bright colours everywhere.

Their amazing garden was transformed back in 2010 with plans drawn up by young people.

a

Their requirements were a gazebo, a water feature and a place to sit and eat, and those plans have been developed over the years to be the beautiful, safe space it is today.

B-Wild

The B-Wild Service operates across Scotland and aims to support the wellbeing of children, young people and families through time in nature. The project is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund and is supporting eight services to embed therapeutic practice in nature and outdoor learning as a key part of their practice. In Glasgow, at a primary school in the North East of the city, a gardening group is taking place. Teachers at a local primary school nominate pupils to take part, and there’s a community gardener to help things along.

The group offers children the chance to learn about sowing and planting seeds while finding out more about the long-term benefits of growing your own vegetables.

The sessions encourage questions and creative thinking about what, how and where to plant in the playground, as well as supporting the children to have a sense of ownership and responsibility for the vegetables. Its aims are not just to get children outdoors, but to develop their confidence and self-esteem.