Kids, Gardens & Games

Flower Juice Painting

Materials Needed:

• Colorful fresh flower blossoms and fragrant leaves
• Absorbent paper
• A good imagination

Collect whole flower heads and herbs in the morning after the dew has dried. Salvia, marigold, calendula, larkspur, geraniums, and dianthus flowers all produce bright and vivid colors. Fragrant leaves from scented geraniums, sage, lavender, and mint create a lovely palette of green plant colors. A porous absorbent paper works best for this project.

Use the flower blossoms collected that day the same way you would use small sponges or paintbrushes dipped in paint to add soft pastel colors to pencil drawings or create colorful, free-form paintings.

When gathering the flowers and leaves from the garden, discuss the different insects that help pollinate these plants and how the color, shape, and patterns on flowers and leaves attract pollinators to a plant.

Bouquet Party Garden Game

This party game, “Bouquet” was published in The Flower Grower, a garden magazine dating back to the 1930s.

Children were assembled at a table, and each child was given a sheet of paper and a pencil. A large pyramid of flowers, made of small bouquets, was placed in the center of the table. The children were asked to write a list of flowers, beginning with letters of the alphabet in succession, such as Alyssum, Bluebell, Columbine, etc.

A predetermined time limit is announced at the start of the game. Whoever finishes the whole flower alphabet first gets to select a bouquet to keep. As each player finishes writing his or her list of flowers, they win a chance to pick a bouquet.

Children unable to complete a list had to pay a forfeit to win a bouquet; forfeits were judged and redeemed before a bouquet could be taken. The directions did not mention what the “forfeit” was, so be creative, depending on the children or group you are working with.

Allium Fairy Wand

Materials Needed:

• Large long stem allium flower
• Fresh or dried flowers and herbs with 4 to 5-inch stems
• Green florist tape and thin wire
• Paper doily

Gently strip any leaves from the flower and herb stems. Holding the allium in your left hand, surround the flower head with 4 or 5 sprigs of a small contrasting flower or herb, adjusting the spacing as you go. Add 2 or 3 more concentric rings of herbs and flowers, fixing them, so they are evenly spaced. Binding the stems to the allium stalk with floral wire as you go.

Add the paper doily. First clip an x in the center of the doily by folding the doily in half for the first cut of I to 11/2 inches, then refold it the other way for the second cut. Finish by wrapping all the stems with green floral tape, stretching and overlapping it as you wind it diagonally down the stems, making a smooth neat handle.

Tie a bow on the handle, using two or three ribbons, and leaving long streamers, then make a wish!

Pumpkin or Squash Stem Whistle

Cut a sturdy six to eight inch pumpkin or squash stem with leaf stalk ( petiole) attached. The leaf petiole is solid at the point it joins the leaf blade. And the rest of the leaf petiole gets hollow as it widens toward the base.

Before you start handling the leaf petiole, remove the rough little prickles by gently wiping them off with a terry washcloth.

Trim the leaf blade off the leaf petiole and cut a one-inch slit on one side of the petiole about 1 inch from the solid end of the stem. (The petiole will be hollow at this point.) Wiggle the knife a bit to make the slit wide enough to get a small amount of air through.

Then blow!

Do you play garden games with your kids? Which ones are your favorite?