How does your garden grow?

I love how kids can offer up a fresh perspective on things and get adults out of our "boxes," if we let them.

Last week, I brought Zippy with me to buy flowers for the front of the house. It's an errand I usually like to do by myself, but on this particular day Hubby had Bee at the pediatrician to check out his perpetually runny nose. It's been running for a month, so being the attentive mother that I am, I had stopped noticing and resigned myself to buying stock in Kleenex. Fortunately, Hubby thought it was worth a doctor's visit and just one day of antibiotics later Bee is snot-free! Woo-hoo!

Anyhoo, so Zippy and I were off to the local nursery. It was 10:00 on a Monday morning, so besides the two of us the other patrons were mainly the senior citizen crowd, who apparently got a big kick out of my child. Zippy had some surprisingly strong opinions about which flowers we should get and debated with me all through the greenhouse, insisting that I get three of these, and not those, and we must have red geraniums. He did offer me some choices, which was very kind of him. Like we had to have a plant with purple leaves, but he presented me with three to choose from. I'm not sure if the people chuckling at him thought he was darn cute or really bossy. (He was in fact both.)

When we bought our house a few years ago, the previous owners had planted fuchsia wave-petunias in the front and they looked gorgeous. Petunias do well in the summer heat when I am too forgetful/lazy/busy to water them, so I've stuck with petunias year after year, and figured I'd do the same this summer. Once in a while I change the color, but that's about as wild as I get. I'm a momma-in-a-box on this matter.

Guess what? We came home without a single petunia. We did some compromising along the way (I insisted Zip stick to the heat-tolerant plants) and ended up with a mix of colors and textures that I actually think is going to look really great! My 5-year-old pushed me out of my box and I think he may have put my landscaping skills to shame.

Then we had a blast planting them together. We started a veggie garden a couple of years ago so that the boys could enjoy planting and growing, but Zippy has never helped much with the flower beds until this year. That is in part because I'm admittedly a bit neurotic and perfectionistic about the flower beds, but also because he usually gets distracted hunting for worms.

Zippy helped spread new soil and even took the initiative to use the manual tiller.

I showed him how to place the plants, still in their containers, around the bed until we found an arrangement that looked nice. Another compromise took place. Zippy had a vision of some sort of castle theme and wanted the plants in a straight row because the purple-leaf plant was the king and the others were its guards. I explained that guards would probably want to be a bit in front of the king to protect him, not right at his sides. I surely would have lost an argument about which looked nicer, but my knowledge of royal strategy served me well in this instance.

Then we planted. Zippy has become a pro at loosening the roots before the plants go in the ground and I explained how patting the soil down to prevent air pockets is important. He loves to learn and he was so passionate about this whole endeavor! If Zippy ever changes his mind about being an animal rescuer, my kiddo can always take up landscaping.

I can't wait to see what the beds look like in a few weeks, once we have the beds mulched and the flowers have a chance to fill in. For now this photo will have to do, and why yes, that IS a garden gnome. 

Do your kiddos like to help in the garden? What jobs do you give them to help out? 

Love, Ellie