Children love to be involved in community gardening and can be keen helpers. Getting children involved can be as easy as contacting your local school or youth group to find out if they want to encourage an after-school gardening club, planning a gardening day at the local park, or providing a community garden that is planted and maintained by the school or youth group. Don’t forget to find out if there are any Brownies or Scouts groups in the area to approach, and of course encourage your own children and grandchildren and their friends to be a part of your community gardening projects so that they can experience the joys of growing too.

 

Tips for involving children: 

Find flowers for them to try growing that germinate easily, grow quickly and have a visual impact such as sunflowers or plants that can be eaten, such as strawberries, peas or runner beans.  Children will love to eat food they have grown themselves.

 

Ensure community gardening events planned are child friendly, supervised and there are varied activities for children and families.  Try combining a planting event with a barbeque, picnic or a bug-hunt. Creative projects such as making scarecrows and bird boxes, weaving living willow stems, painting flower pots and recycling old tiles into mosaic stepping stones are all fun to do and can be displayed in the finished garden.

 

If a community space is going to be used by children and young people, make sure you consider their desires and opinions on what they want there.  Children will respect and take care of space if they feel ownership of it and feel as though they have had a hand in creating it.

 

Help children to spot wildlife in the garden to help them learn about biodiversity. Britain in Bloom has created a ‘Creature Calendar’ for children to help them spot bugs and wildlife throughout the year in their garden. 

 

The RHS also has two schemes to help children learn about gardening: 

 

Joining RHS Garden Explorers opens up a fascinating world of exciting events, hands-on gardening and benefits for all the family. Membership of Garden Explorers allows families and children to access RHS Gardens for free all year, as well as having exclusive access to events and days out - including trails, gardening activity packs and masses of family-friendly fun. 

Find out more at http://www.rhs.org.uk/Explorers/

 

RHS launched the Campaign for School Gardening in 2007 to encourage all schools to get growing, and to acknowledge the right of every child to get involved in gardening.  RHS plans to get 80% of schools in the UK signed up by 2012. 

Find out more at http://www.rhs.org.uk/schoolgardening