Hershey Children’s Garden Cool Plants
(#6 in a series of 10)

Giant Plants: Giant Sunflowers (Helianthus helianthemum)

Some adults bring their children to Hershey Children’s Garden and become engrossed in exciting adventures and programs — and possibly miss some of the horticultural nuances of this great garden space. Hershey Children’s Garden is a sophisticated and — now in its 10th anniversary season — mature garden with many plantings that any adult gardener or garden enthusiast would love to have in their personal greenspace. Who can blame them?

Here is the sixth plant in our series of 10 of our staff’s favorite Hershey Children’s Garden plants, along with their special and unusual properties to appreciate with a child.

Hershey Children’s Garden Cool Plants
(#1 in a new series of 10)

For Shade: 
Curly willow (Salix ‘Scarcuzam’)

Some adults bring their children to Hershey Children’s Garden and become engrossed in exciting adventures and programs — and possibly miss some of the horticultural nuances of this great garden space. Hershey Children’s Garden is a sophisticated and — now in its 10th anniversary season — mature garden with many plantings that any adult gardener or garden enthusiast would love to have in their personal greenspace. Who can blame them?

Here is the first in a series of 10 of our staff’s favorite Hershey Children’s Garden plants, along with their special and unusual properties to appreciate with a child.

This curly willow, located near the pond and tree house, is a favorite with many visitors. I love the sight of its light yellow-green leaves as they emerge in the spring and its dark green mass of tangled branches in the summer. The willow is a great size for the garden space it occupies and is very tough. We lost a third of the branches two winters ago and the tree responded well to winter pruning. A visitor could not even tell the difference. Kids love to hang (not advised) from its weeping branches and the yellow-twisting stems work well in any fall, winter or spring flower arrangement. When visiting with your child, you can jokingly point out the tree as a great pain reliever — just eat the tree — since willows naturally produce ingredients of common aspirin.
 

Come relax under the shade of our weeping willow tree when you visit Hershey Children’s Garden this tenth anniversary season. Oh, and please mark your calendar today — our 10th Birthday Bash is Sunday, June 28 from 5:30 to 8:30. Details coming to our website soon. 

That Means They’re Learning

Wednesday was the opening day of Hershey Children’s Garden tenth anniversary season. I feel extremely privileged and grateful that I get to experience it.

As I start the season, I want to share what I am learning about youth gardening education. When I took this position three and half years ago, I had a tendency to overthink. My experiences over the past several years have taught me the wisdom behind such phrases as "Keep it simple" and "Easy does it." I am learning to stop being such a “teacher” and just let kids experience some aspect of the natural world – a plant, a flower, even a mud pie — in their own way. When a kid tickles the surface of a pond or plunges her fist into the soil, she is learned something profound and connecting with nature in a deep way.

Let your child touch the leaves for heaven’s sake! If your child is dirty, he is probably busy learning. Getting in touch with the life around him. He is getting in touch with himself.
 

Affiliate Garden Club Containers Are Back

Something to think about as the gardening season approaches:

Every year, Hershey Children’s Garden visitors enjoy a creative partnership between our staff and the Garden’s Affiliate Garden Clubs. The Affiliates, a network of area garden clubs, have a rich and varied history with the Garden that includes programming, hosting speakers, and even mounting exhibits and shows. 2009 marks the fourth season of a fun Affiliate collaboration in Hershey Children’s Garden – one that brings whimsical scarecrows in the fall and vibrant containers in the summer that add an extra layer of enchantment for visitors young and old.

Garden staff supplies the containers, soil, site for each pot and twelve creative themes. Affiliates supply the creative arrangement of plant material. The final effect is a garden bursting with fun, amusing, colorful vignettes. Some of this season’s themes include "Stinky Gardens," "Stripy Gardens," "Furry Gardens," "Jurassic Gardens," and "Pink Gardens."

With stimulating designs like these, there is bound to be summer-long enjoyment. Our Affiliates are busy dreaming up their whimsical plantings for this season. They’re not just for kids, and plan on checking them out in a couple of months.

The First Bloomed Greeting

Hershey Children’s Garden opens in less than two weeks! What greetings can you expect on your first visit? Some visitors expect luscious blooms to pop out of the ground in April! I am not kidding you. I remember one parent commenting "is this it" upon their first visit seeing such a bare space. We are "professionals" working in a botanical garden, but sad to say that does not mean we can defy the laws of nature.

What you will see over the next two months is a slow steady re-awakening to the garden. Fairly soon visitors can expect a blast of diverse varieties of daffodils, followed by tulips. Even now as I write crocus, Dutch Hybrid iris and Winter Jasmine are beginning to put on a bloom show. Come see early spring in Hershey Children’s Garden. There is not a week to miss.
   

The Children’s Garden’s Buried Treasure

This is the time of year when I begin to sow seed indoors. All the vegetables and many of the annuals eventually planted in Hershey Children’s Garden begin their life under two small grow labs near my desk! Here are some of the steps I take:

 1. Sowing Out
 

• Start with fresh seed, clean pots, fresh seed-starting mix and clean hands.
• Fill pot with moistened seed starting mix to within a 1/4” of the rim.     
• Tap seeds onto surface of mix.
• Cover the seed with more seed-starting mix or sphagnum moss if specified on label.
• Cover with plastic and label the pot.
• Place in a warm area that provides heat from the bottom
• Remove plastic cover and mist when soil feel dry to the touch.
• Place on windowsill or under lights

 2. Growing On

• When most of the seeds have germinated remove the plastic.
• For even growth on a windowsill turn regularly. If grown under fluorescent lighting place pot within an inch of the tubes. Lights need to be on for 14 hours a day.
• The first set of leaves are seed leaves. When the second set emerge (true leaves) transplant seedlings into individual clean cell packs or pots.

  3. Hardening Off

• Keep the seedlings to within inches of the lights if grown under fluorescents. Move the plants down as they grow.
• In late spring place flats of seedlings in a shaded area during the day.
• Gradually increase light exposure daily until planting time.
• Plant permanently when weather conditions are correct for the type of plant grown. (See planting directions on seed packet.)

Ding, Ding We are One Month Out

Ladies and gentlemen start your engines! It is time to implement all my plans. We are less than a month away from opening Hershey Children’s Garden, April 1st. Outside it may look dormant still with nothing occurring, but already roots are spreading and sap is raising on warm days. It may look like there is nothing happening here, but inside, under ground, garden staff are gathering materials and setting our plans into motion. I can not wait. Did I mention I can not wait?

 A Drive To Nature Visit?

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) is campaigning for a "green hour" for parents and children. The NWF is encouraging parents to get their children outdoors for an hour a day of unstructured play time surrounded by green. The NWF, along with most environmental educators, are concerned with the increasing encroachment of technology, the built environment and the distance one must travel now in some cases to spend any time outside.
 

Studies continue to show the important benefits physically and cogitatively adults and children alike get from being surrounded by other living things. I say amen to getting your child outside even if it is just for an hour. The best place to begin is your backyard if you have that luxury, but augment such experiences with an inspirational visit to Hershey Children’s Garden. Here you can stoke the fires of interest to spend more time in your own yard.
 

Simply Chiming

Do you want to know what I am stoked about? Probably not, but since I am suppose to blog, I am going to share any way. I am excited about wind chimes! No not the annoying kind that everyone insists upon hanging from the front porch but the unusual. I was walking through the theme gardens on site with parents when I came across a very large single bell type chime. Instantly, I had a hunkering for new sounds in the garden.
Wind chimes, well made, provide a great dimension many do not consider in their gardening. . .sound. Interesting chimes add something to the air that when mixed with great visual and smelly interest makes a complete garden sensual experience.

One does not just hang a wind chime wherever, especially in a children’s garden. Sitting the fabulous chimes (shameless plug) I purchased from our very own gift shop (check out the upcoming tent sale by the way) took some careful thought. First, I want visitors to hear the sound before they see the chime. It adds mystery. Second, the chime must be in a part of the garden where wind passes through easily (not easy in an overgrown jungle). Lastly, and this is important for my garden, the chime had to be out of reach of most hands. Though I love for kids to engage things in the garden, the idea of mass groups of kids stumbling over each other to smack a gong or pull a clacker did not seem overly safe.

So. . .come on down for some sound fun.

Posted by Josh Steffen
 

New to the Activity Cart

If you are a regular visitor to Hershey Children’s Garden you are familiar with the wooden activity cart by the children’s garden gate. The activity cart regularly features what is blooming on a particular day. The activity cart also serves as the starting point for a number of self-guided activities like our stroller strolls, prairie activity book and garden mystery trails.

Coming soon to the activity cart are a number of new self-guided activities aimed at literacy, learning botany, colors and basic mathematical concepts. I am very excited to add them to the many options parents have when visiting. I believe kids not only learn best from areas of interest but in a great environment.

Recent neurological research suggests that a child’s brain is largely developed by the age of three and the biggest contributing factor to brain hard wiring correctly is you, the parent. To this end, these additional activities are meant to give parents and children time together learning about rhyming and opposite words or how many different leaf shapes they can find in the garden.

Come on down and check it out.