Spring-slash-summer has officially come in St. Louis! We’ve had rainy and sunny days, the weather is mild, and it’s a perfect day to do some planting. Whether you want to freshen up your front porch, yard, or even your living room, here are simple instructions for doing some kid- and budget-friendly planting this weekend: simple potted plants!
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5-Step Potted Plants for Kids
Supplies:
- Potting soil
- Pots – If you’re like me, you may have some sitting in your basement with plants you accidentally killed last year! Otherwise, head to your local thrift store to find something unique, or let your kiddo pick one out at a dollar store.
- Small Plastic Cup – Just snag one from your kitchen or the toy bin.
- Gardening gloves (optional) – I tend to just embrace the dirt and use it as an excuse for bathing the kids and spending some time on my nails the next day. But if you want to splurge just a little, my kids LOVE putting on gardening gloves – it makes them clumsier, but they feel like big kids and look oh so cute.
- Plants – See my favorite suggestions at the end of the post. You can also check with garden-savvy friends – they will probably love to give you cuttings or divide some of their tried and true plants.
- Rocks or a Cheap Terra Cotta Pot
Once you’ve gathered supplies from around your house and taken the kids on a special planning trip to choose plants, all you have to do is transfer them into pots!
- Start by filling the bottom ¼ of the pot with rocks or broken terra cotta pieces. This helps prevent soil loss through the holes at the bottom. Note: Most children are wizards at finding rocks (even when you don’t want them to!). I just took mine to the park and filled about an hour gathering rocks in a bucket – free, and an active way to spend a beautiful afternoon.
- Once the pots have rocks, fill them to the half-way point with potting soil. You can use your hands or a small plastic cup to scoop the soil.
- Then, help your kids work the plants out of their store pots and plop them in the new pot. In my opinion, this is the hardest part, especially for little hands.
- Fill in the sides with more potting soil and pat it down a little bit to prepare for watering. You don’t have to pack it in there, but if you leave soil really loosely on the top, it makes a mess when you water. . . I might have learned that the hard way. . . with 8 separate pots. Sometimes, learning takes a while!
- Your last step is watering – use a kitchen cup and slowly water until the top inch of the soil is damp. I used the same cup for scooping soil and watering – it was a free fast-food one, so I just made it my all-time gardening scoop. Fancy, I know.
Help your kids choose the perfect spot to put their new plant! This will be determined by how much sun they need, which can be found on those nifty little tags that come in the pots, or via a quick web search. Depending on how old your children are, this can become a mini-science lesson as they walk around your house and figure out which areas are sunny vs. shady, how the house impacts the shadows, the way the sun “moves” across the sky, and maybe even some research about why different plants require different levels of sun. One of my kids wanted to sit on the porch all day and use his stop watch to time how many hours of sun were in each spot. It only lasted about 15 minutes, but I appreciated his desire for excellence and we talked about the value of estimating as a life skill. My last recommendation is to sit down with a calendar and map out what days to water (this information is also found on the tag that comes with the plant). This will help keep your kids accountable, and teach some personal responsibility.
Choosing plants can be the most fun, or most difficult part of this process. Thankfully, most nurseries are pretty good about specifying if a plant is indoor or outdoor for your region of the country. I highly recommend visiting a local nursery and letting your kids pick out plants that catch their eyes. Gardening is a great sensory experience, so encourage your kids to look for colors they enjoy, smell the leaves and flowers, touch the leaves, etc. I’ve found that the people working at the nursery are normally happy to answer questions and provide information about the care of the plant. If you are a novice gardener, here are some of my favorites:
Low-Maintenance Indoor Plants (also work for a shady porch in the summer): aloe, golden pathos, spider plants, geraniums, jade plants, polka-dot plant, any succulents
Perennials for Outside (pots, or directly in the ground): hostas (shade), hydrangeas, Japanese painted fern, clematis (vine), catnip
Annuals for Outside: These are the hardest ones for me to keep alive, but I plant them anyways because they have the best flowers! I personally love marigolds and vinca flowers. Choose something in colors you love!
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If you loved this post, you’ll also love:
12 Super Cute Garden Crafts for Kids
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Elly Filho says
These are great advice Thanks