Creating A Garden For The Whole Family

You can have the most elaborate back yard from the entire neighborhood, but if it isn’t functional you have built it in vain. We all want to have beautiful and flourishing gardens, but when we have a family, we must also take into consideration the needs of the other members of it. One helpful tip is to start by dividing the space of your yard in two or three visual spaces, one for play and relaxation, one for gardening and maybe one for pets. (Drawing out a diagram, as in the picture to the left, can be very helpful.)

2009 garden plan (Photo credit: lauracreekmore)An open space, perhaps covered by grass & flowers, is ideal for your children. Here you can install a picnic table for open air lunches or for a romantic summer evening dinner.

How about pets? You can build special spaces for these little members of your family, so they have a place where they can play and exercise. Before you plant bushes and ornamental plants, you may want to fence in or build a border around the area. Cats and dogs tend to be attracted exactly by the things we try to keep them away from.

Keep the by-passers’ eyes away from your personal life. Before planning the scenery, designate a place for things like garbage cans. It wouldn’t be very nice to have a wonderful garden right next to the garbage cans. These can be efficiently hidden in some kind of surrounded space, or create a living fence with shrubs and vining flowers on a trellis - lovely!

Functionality is an important factor in your garden, so you have to think about children, little pets and family assets before you plant anything. Save a portion of the yard especially for you, in which you can plant whatever you want and leave for the others some space to do what they want as well. If you have kids, you may even want to create a little garden space for them to plant in as well - teach them early how rewarding it can be to grow things, and getting them involved with their own food production can really help with the picky eaters!

You may also find great satisfaction in building a nice pathway, and perhaps place some benches under an arbor, from which you can relax and admire your work.

The Benefits of Gardening for Kids

If you take a look around, you may notice how nature is treated these days.  It is a sad thing to know that people do not pay all that much attention to environmental problems, which basically means we are slowly but surely destroying this beautiful planet we live on.

What can we do about this?

Image by woodleywonderworks via FlickrOne of the best ways to make lasting change is to start with the children. Getting children involved early with environment-friendly activities helps them to learn how their actions can help or hurt the world they live in, and can give them a feeling of excitement at the things they can do to make positive changes. One such nature-loving activity that children can easily get into is gardening.

Here are some of the benefits that gardening offers children:

1.  An Intimate Knowledge of Science

In planting, children are indirectly taught the wonders of science like the plant's life cycle and how human intervention can break or make the environment.  They can have first-hand experience of the miracle of life through following a seed from germination all the way through harvest.

2.  A Deeper Understanding of Life

Watching a seed grow into a tree is just as wondrous as the conception to birth and growth of a child.  In time, kids will learn to love their plants and appreciate the life in them. Gardening could actually help simulate how life should be treated -- it should be with care. The necessities to live will be emphasized to kids with the help of gardening - water, sunlight, air, soil. Those necessities could easily be corresponded to human necessities, i.e., water, shelter, air, food.  And in the importance of weeding, one could educate children how bad influences should be avoided in order to live a healthy and thriving life.

Image by Rjabinnik and Rounien via Flickr3.  Relaxation

Studies show that gardening can reduce stress because of its calming effect. This is applicable to any age group.  More so, it stimulates all the five senses.  Believe it or not, gardening may even be used as therapy for children who have been abused or those who are members of broken homes.  Having a sense of creation and control over one's environment builds self-esteem, which is essential for a healthy child. 

4.  Quality Time with the Family

One reason adults love to garden is that it can help them forget about the stresses of work and everyday life.  You can take advantage of your time in the garden to spend quality time with your children.  You can talk while watering the plants or you can work quietly beside each other. You might even discover a lot of new things about your child while mingling with them in your garden. 

Help your kids become aware of their environment's needs. And one way to jumpstart that environmental education may be through gardening.  It's hitting two birds with one stone -- teach them to respect life while you bond with them - it's a win-win all around.