A wildlife friendly garden - making a pond

 You might think that making a wildlife pond in your garden is a major undertaking, both in terms of financial outlay and time and energy taken.

I can assure you that it doesn't have to be a big job.

This pond went from a delivery in a cardboard box to complete in under an hour and a half, and the whole thing cost around £40.

First, the pond liner from Amazon:

I also got some oxygenating pond plants:

1. Decide on your spot.  You want somewhere that gets some sunlight, but not all-day direct sunlight otherwise it will get pretty warm and evaporate quite quickly, as well as going green.  Of course, you can dig a hole and sink your pond into the ground if you want.  I've done this in the front garden with exactly the same type of liner.  However, you don't HAVE to do this, and it's absolutely possible to put a simple pond on a patio.  Mine is in a gravelled corner next to a wall and near an olive tree.

2. Build up some support underneath.  I was considering buying some 2x4 timber and building a support for my pond, but decided that with the curvy edges that didn't fit with the "easy project" I was looking for.  However, you need to bear in mind that water is heavy, so you will need something underneath your liner to give it some support around the edges.  I put some bricks underneath the shelved areas and built up with some rubble that we've had stacked against the wall for a couple of years.   

You may wonder what the yellow hose in this picture is... it's the overflow from our water-butt. It's gravity fed over to this corner to keep it away from the timber of the garage. I've just bent it around and left it some space.  To be honest, the water butt doesn't have much in it at the moment, as I've now put most of the water into the pond!

3. Next, put some pot plants around your pond.  This not only disguises the black plastic of the pond liner and the mess of the rubble, but it also gives a stepped access for your wildlife to get to the pond.

4. Naturalise a bit.  As you can see, we've not only planted up some of those pots with a range of plants and planted some bulbs and seeds, but we've also added some branches from the holly tree I severely pruned last year to create a wildlife ramp and to disguise that black plastic a bit more.

5. Put some wildlife shelter inside the pond.  If you want bugs and amphibians to take up residence in your pond, you need to give them some appealing real-estate.  They aren't going to be taken with an expanse of shelter-less black plastic.  In my pond I installed a terracotta plant pot, a couple of broken pieces of slate, some gravel and some pebbles of various sizes.  This gives lots of nooks and crannies to allow the wildlife to get in and out and to provide them with some cosy places to live.

6. I'm pretty pleased with how this is looking.  Time to start adding some water.  Here's some oxygenating plants to put in too.  At some point I'm going to add some more pond plants - I'm looking at flag irises as they are very attractive to things like dragonflies - the adult clings on to the plant as she deposits her eggs in the water, and the larva will later climb up the iris to emerge as an adult.

It's important to use rainwater rather than tap water, as tap water has chemicals added in to make it clean for us to drink, but not so welcoming for the wildlife! I filled several watering cans from my water butt.

And here is the finished pond looking very happy in its corner.  With wildflower seeds sown in the planters, and plenty of nooks and crannies for wildlife both in, under and around the pond, I can't wait for the wildlife to move in!  I've already seen a blackbird and a pigeon having a good drink (and a Cocker Spaniel, but she doesn't count), and a blackbird helping herself to the wildflower seeds I'd planted.

Please note - this post does contain some affiliate links.  That means that if you follow my links to buy the products on Amazon, I get a small commission.  It doesn't affect the price you pay at all.

New Year resolutions

I don't really have any New Year resolutions this year.  I already made some back in the Summer and they are "Things I want to achieve by the time I'm 42."

I'll share them here now, only because it makes me more accountable and therefore should help me along with my will power.

1. My family.  I want to spend more time doing things outdoors with my family.  I'll put things in the diary - walks in the hills, days out on the bikes, make use of our campervan, make picnics and get out in the outdoors.  I'd like to spend time finishing jobs around the house together, and making sure the garden looks amazing so the house is a relaxing and wonderful place to spend time.
2. Get below 65kg.  I'm aiming to do this by exercising for at least 30 mins daily.  I'm going to give myself some fitness goals along the way too, such as a 5km run, then a 10km run, and then a triathlon sometime in the Summer.  To help me out, I'll weigh more regularly, and write down what I'm eating.
3. Write a book and sent it to a publisher, and make money from my writing.  I'm going to work on editing a book that I've already finished (it was some time ago, so it's probably going to be quite a comprehensive edit).  I'm also going to work on teaching resources to sell, work on People Per Hour etc. and also keep a track on time spent on writing projects so I can see how much I actually earn per hour.
4. Have some control over finances - I'm going to save money I make from writing to spend on treat days and holidays.  I'm also going to make and stick to a grocery budget each week.
5. Scouts - I'm going to create a County Induction Pack, complete all my Manager and Supporter Training, establish a wider training team for the county, develop a wider Cub Leader team at Holmer, increase the Wildcat Pack to 36 Cubs and go camping with the Cubs at least once per term.
6. Teaching - I'm going to have a successful year.  I'd like the lessons I teach to be exemplary in terms of children being engaged and enthused, reflecting on own learning and learning behaviours, developing vocabulary and independence.  Most of all, I'd like the children in my classes to be happy, confident and kind.  I'd like to develop the Modern Foreign Language teaching in collaboration with the high schools we feed to.  I'd like the garden club at school to develop our garden to make it a place that people are proud of and want to spend time.  I'd like to be viewed as somebody that people can turn to for help or advice when they need it.

Those are my ambitions for the year ahead.  Now I just need to rediscover my energy, which seems to have escaped me lately, and my willpower, to enable me to achieve any or all of these.

School Garden Club

I've been running our school garden club since last Christmas.  I've usually got between 8 and 12 children between the ages of 6 and 11 who come along each week.  

What we've got:
2 large square raised beds
lots of pots, raised planters etc.
an old shed full of pots, compost, and tools.

A few challenges
We have a bit of an issue with rascally rabbits, 
the other children in the school don't have any ownership of the garden, so they stand on the planters (destroying our plants), pull flowers up and generally maraud.

The vision
A place for learning...
A place where children can enjoy growing things, seeing things grow, and finding out about wildlife...
A place where children from different year-groups come together...
The area around the garden to be an area that the whole school enjoys, feels part of and looks after...

1 raised bed for veg - a path down the middle, soft fruit bushes, and rows of veg.
The other raised bed split into four parts - one is a fairy garden, one a herb garden, one a rainbow garden and one a wildlife garden, surrounded and divided by willow fencing.
A compost heap which the children add to.
benches and seating around the garden.
A willow tunnel for the children to play in.
Surplus cut flowers and veg and fruit to be sold at the school gate and money put back into the garden.
Members of the school community (parents) to volunteer with garden upkeep.
Get some funding for a new shed.

I'm gradually working towards this aim and was delighted with the response last year when I asked parents to donate seeds and plant cuttings for the garden.  

This week we cleared out the shed, which was quite a major undertaking as you couldn't even get in there before.  

As well as working towards our vision, I quite like the activities suggested by the RHS on their website:
RHS SCHOOL GARDENING

image from RHS School Gardening website

This document from the Gardens Trust is also really helpful: Garden Trust leaflet 

I'll post some of our own photos as the project develops.

What ideas have you got for involving children and the community in developing the green space around the school?

Make more of May - a quick life update

May is one of those months that everybody likes.  In May the weather takes a definite turn towards Summer, plants and flowers start growing, BBQs are dusted off, people spend more time outdoors and soak up a bit of well-earned sunshine and warmth.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to give a brief update on what's going on with me, and where life is currently going, especially for those of you that were concerned by my post back in February, where I shared that there were problems with the health of my kidneys being investigated, but I've not mentioned them since!

Let's do the health thing first.  At the kidney biopsy in February I was told that I would hear the results at my  next appointment in three weeks time, unless the results were urgent.  I got a phone-call from the Renal specialist three days later.  It turns out I have a type of Vasculitis called microscopic polyangiitis.  Vasulitis is where the immune system decides to start attacking the blood vessels.  There are lots of different varieties, and microscopic polyangiitis involves the blood vessels in the kidneys, and occasionally the lungs.  So my immune system had started attacking my kidneys, which were inflamed.  They wanted to start treatment right away.  The treatment involves starting on a hefty whack of steroids, which they taper down quite quickly because of the side-effects, and also giving a low-dose chemotherapy type drug infusion every three weeks for ten cycles.  Both of these treatments can have lots of side-effects so they keep a close eye on you, and also give lots of other drugs to try to reduce the side-effects as much as possible.  It means that I trek up to Birmingham every three weeks for the infusion, and again in between for a clinic visit, and also have a blood test here in Hereford mid-cycle.  Its a bit of a long-term illness - it should be in remission by the end of the ten cycles in the Summer, after which the treatment reduces to a maintenance dose.  I'm not sure how long that goes on for, but I think they monitor things and making sure there are no relapses over a couple of years and then gradually try withdrawing the treatment.  I've now had four treatments with the cyclophosphomide infusion, and am due my fifth on Tuesday, and the steroid dose has been reduced from 60mg per day to 20mg over the course of the treatment so far.  

I have to say there have been moments where the whole thing has been a bit overwhelming.  I mean, I'm 37 and previously healthy, reluctant even to take paracetamol most of the time.  Then suddenly I have this long-term illness and am chucking back so many tablets that I think I'm rattling.  Having seen some of the other folks at the clinics and in the infusion suite though, I think I've had it pretty easy.  First of all, thanks to the vigilance of my optician and the competence of the doctors, my illness was picked up and diagnosed very quickly.  I had already seen the specialist before I even felt unwell!  I'm also getting off fairly lightly with the treatments.  I get the impression that others can react pretty badly to it, or get many more side-effects.  I feel a little fuzzy, shaky and very tired the evening and next day after a cyclo infusion, and am getting other side-effects, but nothing serious, and am still managing to work full time.  My side-effects have included sleepless nights - I think that's the steroids.  I've been waking very early in the morning (like between 2 and 4am) and have often been up by 4.30am - also leading to me being pretty grumpy by the time I pick the children up from school at 5.30pm.  Luckily as the steroid dose has been reduced, this seems to be an improving situation.  I get puffy legs as the day wears on, the skin on my hands has gone papery and thin, I've got spotty, I've got a fat face, I've had bouts of nausea (better now, as they changed one of the drugs) and I have AN ENORMOUS APPETITE!  Seriously, I'm hungry all the time.  I lost quite a bit of weight in the few weeks before the biopsy, but have now put it all back on.  One of my  missions for May (and June, July, August etc), is now that the steroid dose is coming down, I've really got to get in control of my eating and try to shift some of the weight back off.  I can't do much about the vasculitis, but  I can make sure that the rest of my lifestyle is healthy.

my fat face today out walking the dog.

Family

My family is lovely.  They've had a bit of a hard time over the last few months, as I've been tired and grumpy.  To be honest, Bug doesn't seem to notice much of the time, but  then she surprises me by making me a card asking "ar you ok?".  C gets more worried, and when he can see that I'm tired or feeling unwell, gives me big cuddles.  I've been trying my best to make sure the house is still clean and tidy, the dog is walked, we have clean clothes and food at the right times, but there have been times when all I've managed to do when I get home from work is curl up on the sofa, and leave it all to Hubby.  Despite my mood swings and fluctuating energy levels, he has kept going with everything.  The whole thing does seem to have sparked a bit of "living for the moment", and we've fulfilled a couple of dreams by going on holiday to Venice, and ordering a brand-new VW Camper.  Hopefully we'll keep on with that - I like that we're getting on with living right now. 

We like Herefordshire, it's a beautiful place to live.  We're still hoping to sell the house in Scotland (sooner rather than later) but currently have tenants in there and are renting down here.  We can't wait to finally buy a house here and make it into our own home - because we know we aren't planning to stay here we aren't doing anything that would need undoing at the end of the tenancy, it feels very temporary.  I'm pretty sure we'll be in this place at least until the end of the Summer, so another thing to do in May will be to get some veggies and flowers in the garden.  Last year I got a few tubs and pots around the place, and I hope to make use of some pallets and extend that this year, allowing space for the children to have their own planting area too if possible.  We can either take them with us or bin them when we finally do move.

Work - I'm really enjoying being back at work, though obviously with all the trips to doctors and hospital, blood tests and feeling unwell or tired it hasn't all been easy.  I'm currently covering a maternity leave at a tiny little school in rural Herefordshire teaching Reception Class.  It was a challenging start, as there were two classes sharing one classroom, which was slightly chaotic to say the least!  Things are now looking much better, as I have a huge classroom, which is beginning to look more like the way a Reception Classroom is supposed to look (though getting resources ordered via our "umbrella" school is unbelievably slow - we are definitely the poor dependent!).  In professional terms I am really enjoying the challenge of teaching a different age-range.  The LEA are coming in to moderate my EYFS judgements on the little lovelies at the end of May, and while I'm hoping that I'll learn from the experience, I'm also hoping that it won't be too much of a learning curve and that they'll agree with most of my judgements.  I'm feeling pretty good because I've already done a lot of the evidence gathering and preparation work ready for that, and by doing so, it will also put me ahead of the game when it comes to writing EYFS Profiles and school reports towards the end of term.

In the meantime, I'm also applying for jobs for September.  Watch this space to see how I get on with that!  

Everything else - writing, crafts, model railway, Scouting, making stuff - It will come as no surprise having read all the above, that my writing, my crafting, the model railway (which came out of storage a couple of months ago), and all the other projects with which I like to fill my life, have taken a definite back seat over the last few months.  I am still required to make things by my demanding daughter, and do my best to fulfil her requests, but am also trying to teach her that with many demands on my time, I need to prioritise, and making a cat costume is lower on the priority list than filling in a job application!  I hope to get back to all these things of course, but just now getting fit and healthy, spending time with the family and keeping up at work are my three top priorities - in that order.

What are you up to in your life at the moment?  How are you getting on with your life dreams and priorities?

Tuesday Tutorial - How to make a campfire cushion

 Some of you  may remember my post a few weeks ago about the tepee I made for the children to play in the garden.  I also made a campfire cushion and some bunting to go with it.  From Bug's point of view, the tepee is certainly the most successful item, and she also loves the bunting, and has plans for me to make a lot more of it.  For me though, I was most pleased with the cushion.  I've now made several more of these campfire cushions, am sending one to a friend from Scouting (I sent me something awesome several months ago, so if he reads this he'll now know who he is), and have some for sale on my Folksy shop, with a posting coming soon on Etsy.  So here's how to make one:

You will need: 

• canvas or other fairly hardwearing light coloured fabric.  I used lightweight canvas because I had plenty left over from the tepee construction.
• a square each of red, orange, yellow and brown felt
• fusible interfacing (bondaweb or similar)
• red thread and natural thread
• polyester toy stuffing - large bag
• cutting tool (I use a rotary cutter and mat), scissors, sewing machine, needle

 - First measure and cut your first triangle.  Each side is 40cm (about 16 inches).
 - Cut around this triangle to cut three more.

 You can either cut your felt into flames and log shapes first and then fix them to the fusible interfacing (as I've done in this picture) or you can fuse the interfacing onto the whole sheet of felt and then cut out the shapes (which I did when I was making eight cushions at once).  Either way, you get your flame and log shapes with the fusible interfacing on the back.

 Peel the backing paper off the interfacing and arrange the flames and logs how you'd like them to make your fire, then iron them through a damp cloth to stick them.

 Use the sewing machine and red thread to stitch over the edges of all your felt pieces.  This not only stops them from peeling off in the future, but also adds some definition to the fire.

 Next, pin the triangles together right sides together (making sure to keep all the fires the same way up) to make a pyramid and stitch with cream or natural coloured thread, leaving a small gap on one of the bottom edges to turn the right way out.

 Turn the pyramid the right way out, stuff and then overstitch to close the gap.  

Et voila!  A cosy campfire cushion to inspire creative play and just to look gorgeous around the home or garden.

Monday make - Tepee tutorial

So pleased to have finished this.  I've been wanting to make a tepee or something for the garden for the longest time.  See here for my plans to make our rented garden a more inviting place to play.  I then started looking for tepee ideas on Pinterest, and came up with the plan for this one.  I'll be following up with tutorials for the bunting and the campfire cushion (I'm so in love with this cushion, and will be making and selling more of them) in the next couple of weeks.

So... without further ado... how to make a tepee (teepee):

What you need: 

• 12 ft by 15 ft painters canvas drop cloth (or two 9 ft by 12 ft cloths, some waxed linen thread and a stout needle).  This is the cloth that painters and decorators use to cover furniture and carpets while they work.
• 10 x 8ft garden canes or similar (see note later)
• eyelets and eyelet inserter
• stout string
• short length of sturdy cotton or linen tape

Instructions:

I wasn't able to get hold of 12 x 15 foot drop cloth, though you can get it in the USA which is why I've included it here.  If you can't get hold of it, then your first job is to lay out your two 9 x 12 foot cloths with a 6" overlap between two 9 foot edges and join with two rows of running stitch on each side of the overlap.  You'll end up with a 12 by 17 1/2 foot cloth.

Measure 7 1/2 foot along the long side of your cloth and stitch on a loop of cotton or linen tape.  Tie the end of a piece of string to this loop, and then tie a pen 7 1/2 foot along the piece of string.  Get a willing volunteer to hold the loop still, while you pull the string taut and use the pen to draw a semi-circle on the cloth with a 7 1/2 foot radius.  Cut out the semi-circle.

Insert eyelets down the straight edge of the semi-circle on one side of your loop.

Now take your canes.  I used 8 foot long heavy duty garden canes.  Most places only sell them in packs of 50 or 100, but I did find a place that sold a pack of 10.  Actually these weren't as sturdy as I expected or hoped and we're having to take the tepee down overnight and wouldn't leave it up in the wind.  In the future we'd consider replacing them with steel rods, metal piping or 2"x 1" wood to add stability and we'd then tie down a couple of guy ropes which would give us a lot more confidence.  Fasten the canes with string in a variation on the tripod lashing about 6 inches from the end.  

Spread the canes out in a circle approximately 5-6 feet in diameter.  Stand on a step or chair and hook the loop (half way along the straight edge of the semi-circle of canvas) over the top end of one of the canes.  Wrap the canvas around the canes.

Sew the top of the tepee closed using the first few eyelets, and sew loops of string in place on the non-eyelet piece of canvas to open and close the door using the other eyelets.

I hope this is okay.  I'm still quite a tutorial beginner, and now I've found that I didn't take enough photos of each step to make it clearer.  I'm sure I'll improve in the future!

Ten things to do with mud - activities for children

Since mud surrounds us most of the time, it's freely available in the garden at no cost and it's a marvellously tactile material, it makes sense to use it in children's play.  I do live in the real world, and there are times (many) when I groan to see yet another clean pair of trousers or brand new pair of cream tights covered with mud and requiring washing, but I also love to see my children getting hands-on with interesting materials, particularly outdoors, natural materials.

Here's a round-up of ten interesting activities that children can be encouraged to do with mud:

1. Cooking mud pies in a mud kitchen - this image is from www.castlenursery.net.  A mud kitchen can be as simple as a patch of soil and an unwanted saucepan, right up to a fully equipped toy kitchen set up outside with a variety of wooden, plastic and metal tools, pans, bowls and utensils - where children can mix mud, water, acorns, pebbles and pine cones to their hearts content to make mud pies, grubby soup, worm cake and any other delectables that their imagination provides.
2. Mud sculpture - this image is from casamarias.blogspot.co.uk.  Encourage children to make models using mud, and allow them to dry out.  Clay type mud is better for this.
3. Mud painting - image from elmbridge.gov.uk.  Take a large, sturdy piece of card and encourage the children to "paint" images and patterns using hands, sticks, car wheels, bike tyres, brushes or anything else.
4. Planting - image from mymothermode.com.  Children don't "get in the way" of gardening (once they are walking and not eating everything anyway), and love to be involved in the gardening process.  Point them to some nicely prepared soil, show them how to plant, and let them go for it.  It's true, a few small plants may get slightly damaged in the process, but most recover, and the learning experience is well worth it.
5. Small world farm - This awesome small world farm was pinned by Kirstine Beeley on Pinterest.  I would prefer to set the farm up in a raised bed, but this outdoor play tray is really good too.  She's even got real carrots in there for the tractor to harvest!
6. Diggers - This image is from pre-schoolplay.blogspot.com.  So the toys get dirty - they can be washed!  Put diggers in real soil/mud, especially if there's a construction site nearby that the children can relate to.
7. Archaeology dig - Bury an interesting artifact (a pot in several pieces, an old metal kitchen utensil or a few toy dinosaurs) in the soil in one area of the garden or a raised bed, and allow it to settle for a few weeks (if you can spare some garden).  Now introduce the children to the idea of archaeology and how it works.  Show them the area of the garden where they will search.  When they've dug the item up, get them to try to put it together if required, and to figure out what they can about the item.  This image is from allthatsgood.blogspot.co.uk.
8. Make compost - Get kids involved with your compost making routine at home and you'll have the joys of introducing them to reducing waste, to all sorts of little garden critters, and to making the garden a better place.  It's a win-win!  These images are from www.greenmomguide.com where she talks about how to make compost with kids in under an hour.
9. Barefoot walk - I know, I know.  There might be sharp stones, prickly plants, or even glass or dog mess.  But let's say you check the route for any obvious signs of these first.  It takes a lot to beat the feeling of tickly grass and squelchy mud between our toes.  And lets face it, most of us don't think twice about letting our little ones barefeet on the beach, where there are similar risks?  This awesome picture is from outsideways.com.
10. Tracking - There are two types of tracking.  The first is the one practiced by wilderness gurus the world over, where you are looking for signs left by wildlife.  This may be owl pellets, fur, tunnels through the grass, nibbled nuts and... footprints in the snow or... mud!  The other is the method used by scouts to leave a trail for those following on behind, a series of simple symbols created with pebbles, stones, chalk or even drawn in the mud.  It doesn't matter which of these you choose, you'll have a ball.  To find animal tracks in the mud you'll want it to have rained the day before, to make the ground nice and soft, so that evening and night time critter visitors will have left nice footprints for you to find in the morning.  This image is of a deer print from newforestexplorersguide.co.uk, where they have lots of other great tracking information for the UK.

What do you like to do with mud?

Ways to play in a rented garden

People who rent a property are always in a bit of a dilemma about their garden.  Landlords may stipulate that the garden must be left in the same state in which the property was rented, or that it must be returned to that state before you leave.  They might state that you are responsible for keeping the garden in a good state and that they will or will not provide the tools for you to do that.  Or they might let you do what you like with it, as long as the changes would be viewed as an improvement, particularly if you are a longer let.

We're in a situation where we are hoping to be renting for as short a time as possible, so we need to leave the garden exactly as we found it.  This is what it looks like:

We have a square of lawn at the front,

and a square of gravel at the back.

This is clearly a low maintenance garden, but here's the thing:

1. It looks horrible and dull and boring.
2. I like gardening and growing things
3. This really isn't a very inspiring place for the children to play.

I'm going to come back to how you can garden in a rented space in a future blog post, so for the time being... how can we make this a better space to play?

Over the winter months it hasn't been much of an issue.  When they've played outside the children have just wrapped up warm and ridden their scooters or pushed the prams up and down the concrete paths.  As the weather warms up though, they are going to want to spend a bit more time outside.

Given that we are hoping to move as soon as our house in Scotland sells, we don't want to be installing a playhouse or large play structures (the house a couple of doors down has an entire playground in the garden), because everything will have to be moved.

Here are my thoughts:

• put up a tent for a couple of days every couple of weeks, or even better...
• make a teepee - if I bought a whole bunch of old curtain fabric from a charity shop this could be quite inexpensive, then just requiring five wooden broom handles at £2 each and some time at the sewing machine.
• get hold of some unwanted bits of plank or pallet and create some roadways for toy cars
• use scrap wood to make some small houses to dot around the garden (if these go okay they'll be appearing on my Sunbow Designs shop too!
• maybe get a rubbish scrappy coffee table and combine with a grow-bag tray to make a water or sand play tray;
• make a small wooden small world structure (rough design below) to house anything from dolls, fairies, dinosaurs or toy animals:

It doesn't sound much, but that's quite a lot to get around to doing at some point over the next couple of months, and could transform the garden into a much more playful space, where the children want to spend more time

10 great ideas for outdoor creative play spaces

Creative play is super important in the development of young people.  It encourages problem solving and creative thinking which are of paramount importance in adult life.  Being outdoors, and able to connect with the world around them is also very important.

I was delighted with the pre-school that my children attended in Scotland.  They were in the process of redesigning their outdoor space for year-round use.  The space now included lots of creative scope, loose parts, mud and water set out in a purposeful and inviting way.  The space was just asking to be played in, and the children loved it.

Here then, are ten brilliant outdoor creative play spaces for your delectation and inspiration:

1) From letthechildrenplay.net

2) from abcdoes.com

3) Living teepee from embracevirtues.com 

4) outdoor small world play from Suzyhomeschooler.com

5) a playhouse from handmadecharlotte.com 

6) outdoor puppet theatre from mom4real.com

7) Recycled outdoor music station from mynearestanddearest.com

8) water play wall from ei-zeroseis.blogspot.co.uk

9) my own picture.  These poetry stones were at the National Trust Centre in Aberdaron

10) Outdoor art area from raisinpeanuts.com

1) From letthechildrenplay.net - just set out some natural loose parts, and let the children's imaginations do the rest.

2) From abcdoes.com.  A mud kitchen doesn't have to be complicated, and it can get messy... but it encourages imaginative and tactile creative play.

3)  This living teepee from embracevirtues.com is gorgeous with a combination of beans, sweetpeas and nasturtiums scrambling all over, some painted stepping stones and some woodchips to sit on.  What a great place to play!

4)  Small world play doesn't have to be indoors, as this picture from Suzyhomeschooler.com illustrates.  Grass, shrubs and sand provide everything you could need for dinosaurs, lions and elephants etc.  Road ways and railways can weave around the garden, concrete steps become car parks.  Okay, so you may lose the odd dinosaur or car, but that's just treasure to discover on another occasion!

5) Playhouses come in many shapes and sizes.  If you buy one off the shelf that's fine, but allowing the kids to use their creativity and customise it means it has a meaningful place in their play, and building your own, like this one from handmadecharlotte.com, is even better.

6) I adore this outdoor puppet theatre made from an old pallet at mom4real.com.

7) Recycled outdoor music station from mynearestanddearest.com.

8) I love this water play wall from ei-zeroseis.blogspot.co.uk.  There are some other ideas on their site too, to encourage exploring with water.  I also think it's important to have some standing water to play with and explore floating and sinking, as well as pouring and flow.

9) Poetry stones are a great idea.  You basically write a whole load of interesting words on pebbles, and leave them to the children to arrange as they see fit.

10) This outdoor art area from raisingpeanuts.com is a lovely idea.  Any situation where art materials are available will encourage children to use them creatively.  Whether it's a pot of chalks for drawing on paving slabs and fences; paper and pens; weaving materials; flower press or anything else.

I'm keen to include as many of these ideas as possible in the garden when we buy our next house (hopefully in the next few months!)...

What creative outdoor space ideas do you have?  Please share in the comments section.

Spring in the garden

Spring has finally found its way to our corner of Scotland.  Following a glorious springtime holiday, we've come home to gently nudge our garden into life

The children's gardens.  C's is on the right, and full of strawberry plants.  He started off with one strawberry plant two years ago, and they just keep sending off runners, which he's delighted about.  He's also planted a couple of broad bean seedlings which they grew at pre-school, and some daffodils.  There's a sunflower seed in there, but so far nothing's happening with that.  I'm unsure what the chimney at the back is, he found it on the beach on holiday and insisted on bringing it back for his garden.  Bug's garden is on the left.  I'm not sure what she has in there.  I think a strawberry plant (a runner from C's garden), a potato, a flag, a duck, a couple more broad bean seedlings and any random piece of foliage or flower that she's picked from around the garden and "planted" in her bit.

I've sown an array of seeds in the greenhouse, and now must remember to keep them watered every day!

Hubby's changing the lawnmower blade, C is riding his sister's bike, and I think she's talking to an ant.

Spring flowers!

more seeds sown in the greenhouse.

What do you do in your garden at this time of year?