Question: Do you have any suggestions on how I might get my whole family involved in gardening?
Answer: Most of you know I have been an avid gardener since childhood. It was only natural for me to want to get my wife and children involved in gardening too. My success was variable.
The first thing I learned was that I had to give up expecting perfection. If I wanted everything in my landscape to be perfect, then I was going to have to do most of the work myself.
I started with the children when they were very small, being daddy’s and mommy’s helpers. We would dig a hole for a plant and let the child place the plant in the hole and push some soil around it. I usually had to come back later by myself to make sure each plant’s roots were properly covered. Then we would later point out to the child that they helped create the beauty.
Although we had some family group projects, such as weeding, the second thing I learned was that we had to give specific areas to each individual that was their responsibility. That means letting them decide what to do with that area.
For example, I gave my daughter a portion of the vegetable garden to plant whatever she wanted to plant and take care of. She promptly decided to plant flowers. We went to the garden store to pick out plants. She asked me how tall and what color the flowers were if they weren’t in bloom. She had an excellent sense of how to select compatible colors. That area was the prettiest part of the yard for several years.
A son had a keen interest in lawns and lawn maintenance equipment. So the lawn became his responsibility when I agreed to spend some money on a better quality mower and edger. My wife took responsibility for selecting flowers for the beds in front. Another son was interested in learning about pruning. He learned the principles of pruning well enough that I could trust him to prune any plant in the landscape. Both boys earned extra part time income doing garden work for neighbors.
Not every child became as involved in gardening to the degree I wanted. However, all of my children have become home owners. Every child’s home landscape is reasonably well maintained. The child with the most income has decided to have her landscape professionally maintained.
Comments are closed.