Banishing back-to-school blues with a family gardening project

  
 

The Back to School rush can be a harrowing experience for the family, especially if you or your little ones suffer from the common plight of separation anxiety. How better to keep your kids close while they’re off expanding their minds than an ongoing project the family can create and cultivate together in the after-school hours?

The purest and kindest form of book is one that captures the imagination for years to come. Sharon Lovejoy’s Sunflower Houses is just that – a book so rife with endearing ideas and beautiful imagery that it takes the reader to another place. Here’s the kicker, though. Sunflower Houses is no gothic novel or epic tale, but a simple, watercolor-illustrated guide for creative gardening with children. The inspiration for some of my favorite childhood memories, Lovejoy’s compendium of magic is the perfect way to inspire those golden hours of freedom that will well make up for the school-days a family spends apart.

Some family gardening project suggestions for city-dwellers:

- This one is Lovejoy’s own, so be sure to pick up her book for complete instructions and more fantastic ideas (including how to create you very own Sunflower House). Build a bamboo-pole teepee surrounded with climbing plants, such as runner beans or morning glories. Circle the tee-pee with twine for greater growth coverage. The more the plants flourish the more secret your hiding-place teepee will become. The best part is that you don’t even need a garden patch, as the poles can be propped together on any outdoor patio surface, and the vines require relatively small planters to survive.

- Another straight from Sunflower Houses, great if you have a little plot of earth somewhere: Set aside a semicircle shaped bed and plant a Rainbow Garden with rows of reds, yellows, evergreens, purples and blues. You can even put a terra-cotta pot at one end filled with "gold" flowers for your lucky child.

- Do you have several children going off to different grades and want to include them all? For indoors or outdoors, arrange a Just Like Me Garden that personifies your family. Perhaps marigolds for the golden-curled youngster, irises for the elegant young lady, and a sturdy climbing vine like snap peas for the energetic fellow in the family. Add something for yourself and watch as your Garden "Family" entwines together.

- We have all experienced that memory and emotion tie in strongly to scent. If your youngsters are having a particularly hard time grappling with separation anxiety, plant a Smells Like Home Garden and include herbs and flowers with strong and pleasant aromas. Once these mature a bit, snippets can be sent off to school with your kids. Nothing is a more comforting reminder of home than a sprig of aromatic lemon thyme tucked in a lunchbox, or one of your most fragrant flowers given on the way to the schoolbus.

- Similarly, try a small vegetable garden. You can send homegrown - and healthy! - snacks off with your kids on a daily basis.

Farmer's Almanacs and Gardening Guides are available online, in stores, and at local libraries, and are useful for learning what plants will grow best in your area and conditions. Even the smallest indoor garden of a couple of terra-cotta planters can be a joyful reminder that home and family is awaiting at the end of the day - for parents and children alike. And when it comes to imagination, Sharon Lovejoy’s Sunflower Houses is the perfectly innocent book to get you started on a family gardening adventure. It’s a must-have for anyone, rural or urban-living, who loves creating beauty, nature, and family memories.