February's garden

February 17, 2009

The kids let me know, late last week, in no uncertain terms that they wanted to start planning their gardens. I wasn't quite ready but my kids have a way of kicking my butt into gear. 

It's not vegetables these kiddos want to plan, just flowers and decorative plants thank you very much. Flowers that grow tall and will provide little shelters for reading, resting and sketching. Flowers that attract birds and butterflies, but not wasps (we like bees around here but the kids don't like wasps).

Flowers that smell pretty, bloom nicely and don't get eaten by slugs. Plants that provide cover for frogs and salamanders. Oh and don't forget the pond where the frogs will the live. The pond we meant to dig last summer but couldn't find time to do.

Starting this week during our usual school time I've worked with each child in turn to sketch out an small area of our backyard that they can "have". Each bed has to be prepared in the spring since we are claiming areas of lawn (and I use that word very loosely - more accurately it could be called clover/plantain/self heal(?) ground cover) in order to plant these flower & pond gardens. Seems like a lot of work, I hope they're up to it. I'm certainly not looking to add more beds to the 5 perennial beds & kitchen garden I already maintain.

But what else can you do in mid-February when the snow is ugly, hard and crusty? When the winds blow and there is no color to be found in the natural world - save blue sky and brown tree limbs. So for now the kids plan, sketch, write, draw, research, measure and read.

Call it schooling, call it dreaming, call it February sanity.