Fairy Gardens - teach your kids to love plants (and give them a bit of responsibility too!)
- Mamatomo Mama
- Mar 26, 2018
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 4, 2018
A little fairy garden is the perfect introduction to the responsibilities involved in taking care of something plus the requirement to be gentle. And its pretty!
What you will need:
-We used an antique lacquer bowl that I had lying around - only because its basically like plastic and won't break if dropped. If you use succulents then you don't need to worry about drainage because the plants will only be sprayed with water - so use anything you like. Shallow bowls are fine because succulents have shallow root systems
-a bag of compost
-succulents (very in fashion right now - require v little care. Keep in bright location and spray occasionally with water
-seeds (we chose to add seeds because it's exciting to look forward to the seeds growing into plants. I chose nasturtiums because the flowers are edible and so are the leaves. Try them! Plus if you leave the flowers to go to seed then you can plant more nasturtiums in a few months!
-a spray bottle
-fairy garden items. You can use toys you already have or buy online. We bought ours on Amazon
My three year old was able to do this whole activity by herself with some instruction from me.
-Put the soil in the pot,
-Make holes for the succulents and place them in.
-Plant seeds around and spray each day in the soil around where the plants will begin to grow (3-5 days). Succulents don't need spray near the soil but the nasturtiums do.
-Place the fairy garden items on the soil. Be careful over the coming days when the nasturtiums begin to sprout to move any toys that are in the way. You might have to 'thin out' the nasturtiums if too many grow. Just pull the smallest and weakest looking plants out, leaving space for the strongest ones to flourish.
-When moving items around the fairy garden, my kids use large tweezers which are great to teach fine motor skills.
We have had our plants for almost four weeks now and the kids love spraying their plants every day, The nasturtiums will eventually grow longer and trail which should be pretty. I will post a picture when that happens!
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