How to have fun during the Easter holidays

Easter is approaching (Sunday 16 April) and the glorious, warming weather provides a great incentive for all of us to enjoy the garden. Get the kids outdoors having fun during the school holidays now and they will form habits that will last through the summer.
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8 reasons to get your kids out into the garden this spring

There’s no doubt that gardening, in all its various guises, is a fun and healthy activity for kids. Gardening provides a lot of enjoyment and it has huge educational and health implications too.

Give children a bucket, like these picturing farmyard animals from Perfectplants.co.uk, and they will be happy for hours!

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Non-toxic plants that are safe around pets and children in the home and garden

Let's start with the poisonous ones.

Choosing non-toxic plants is important for households in which pets and small children might sample the greenery! It is quite rare for people or pets to choose to eat toxic plants. But indeed, it does happen. Some poisonous plants don’t even need to be eaten in order to prove fatal. Indeed, gardeners are believed to have been killed by wolfsbane, or Aconitum, which is also known as monkshood. This attractive plant has large leaves and purple, hooded flowers which look rather like cowled monks’ hoods.

Aconitum is also known as Wolfsbane and the name will be familiar to Harry Potter fans!

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Greening up lives. The way forward in sustainable steps

We’ve all become accustomed to the many, varied and sometimes curious words connected to ‘sustainability’ and the environment. Related terminology is now part of the national lingo. Hopefully, by now, most people lead at least partial sustainable lives and are ‘environmentally aware’.  Even if you choose to ignore the message, there's no doubt  that it is up to each and every one of us to play a part in protecting the planet.

What part do gardens play in all this? Quite a large part, actually...
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Nine ways to have fun with plants and vegetables during the 9th month!

Do your kids or grandchildren show any interest in the garden? If not, are you 'bovvered'?  Do you mind the fact that most of today's small people seem to love their digital world better than the ‘real’, nature-led environment in which you probably grew up? If the answer is a resounding "yes", let's do something about it! Here's nine ways to make some fun:

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Do you have five 'Gardening Friends'?  Tell us who they are...

Everybody needs friends and most gardeners feel they have many. There's all those lovely plants of course; the creatures in the pond; the birds that visit the table and of course the people that gardeners meet during any sort of garden-related activity. It's no surprise that gardeners generally accumulate a network of like-minded pals. There's the local horticultural club or garden society; the allotmenteers; the neighbours who share plants and information; the garden centre buddies; the elderly residents who are grateful to have a bit of help. When you garden, a budding social world presents itself.
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