My new house has some gorgeous green shrubs and boxwood but hardly any flowers or color contrast! Now that spring is here, I wanted to get started on maintaining and adding to our existing beds. I was short on time and wanted to include my kids in this outdoor activity to transform our entry area. I found the most amazing Monrovia perennials and they were so easy to work with! (You can shop Monrovia here)
I try to engage my boys in more of our outdoor maintenance as they get older, and thought planting a flower bed in our front entrance would be a fun activity for our gorgeous Sunday afternoon! Of course, in my head I had this picture perfect idea of them helping and not making a mess, and the beds would be perfect by the end. I came up with helpful tips for planting flowers with kids and I hope you find these tips helpful!
Gardening and maintaining healthy and aesthetically pleasing green spaces can be quite easy if you follow a few basic principles. Monrovia is here to help with healthy plants and growing tips.
Monrovia plants are available at local garden centers and Lowe’s across the country.
Check out the “before” picture of our front entryway…
We went to my local garden center to buy some flowers and came across the brand Monrovia. I fell in love with all of the options and how healthy and hearty all of their products looked.
I am the type that searches through the entire inventory of bushes/flowers to find that one “hero” pot but with Monrovia, all of them were perfect! Monrovia grows all of their plants and flowers and they pride themselves on starting with the best bred varieties and raising the plants in custom-blended soil with amazing care. That is BIG for me because I want to be sure the plants and flowers I am growing are going to live and look healthy and high quality!
My Helpful Tips for Planting Flowers with Kids:
1. Be organized: Get all of your tools, soil, gloves, and plant material (Monrovia can be found here) ready and set up near where you are planting (you don’t want them to lose interest while you go find the right tools!) Be sure to have kid sized shovels and gardening gloves so they feel they are “dressed for the part” and don’t get frustrated with oversized tools or gloves.
2. Figure out placement. I first set out my pots of Monrovia flowers in the placement I wanted to plant them. While I was doing that, Pierson was helping me take out the little instruction / variety label sticks from the pots. This kept him busy while I was getting my plants set out.
3. Delegate age appropriate tasks to your child. While I was digging the holes in our clay (gotta love the south!), I was having Pierson scoop out any extra pieces of clay in the dug holes. He felt he was making an impact, while I did the heavy lifting.
4. Let your child try! The next step was to fill the holes with the mixture of topsoil and garden soil. Pierson loved helping me mix the dirt together and fill the bottom of the holes. I wasn’t worried about him putting in too much or too little because I would just follow him and adjust as needed 😉 Don’t be afraid to let them try and you can always “fix” later if things don’t seem right.
5. Sense of Accomplishment. Be sure to show them their progress by taking a before and after photo. The kids love looking back at what the old photo looked like and I congratulated them on helping to make the “after” photo look so great due to their help!
Thanks to Monrovia’s easy to follow instructions, we did this in about a half hour!
Find your local garden center that carries Monrovia by clicking here.