At 10 months old, Archie is suffering from his first bout of man flu. To relieve his symptoms and get myself out of the house, we trailed around the garden this morning. Never one to miss a multi-tasking opportunity, I decided to take a few photos while I was out.
I'll admit I'm not a great plant photographer, but these weren't meant to grace any walls. Instead I used them to put together a quick spotters sheet for Ava and Oscar this afternoon.
This is a very simple idea - but it involves ticking things so I knew it would be a hit with Ava.
I found 12 plants which looked quite distinctive - from the emerging flowers of the stinking hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) to clumps of snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) and various evergreens. These were then printed out on a single sheet of A4 and given to both children on their own clipboard.
It helped that I was able to walk round with them - not only to give them clues of where to look, but also to name the plants as we went along. I did hold back on the Latin - I'd like them to be plant knowledgeable, not downright pretentious.
Hopefully, we'll do this again, especially as so many more plants are about to make their entrance in the garden. Also, they were both keen to paste the sheets into their garden journals, so they will have a record of what to look out for each month.
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