Childminders Gardening Blog by Marion Keogh
Winter is a magical time in Nature and in the garden. And guess what? It doesn’t have to be ALL about Christmas!
Winter Walking
Getting wrapped up warm for winter walks is great fun for children. Hats, Gloves, Scarves and Warm Coats layered with jumpers and hoodies underneath can make kids feel like snowmen. As the outdoors activities go on though the small bodies warm up nice and toasty and some of those layers can be peeled off.
Bring a flask of hot chocolate or soup and sit down under some trees and have a warm drink. Take some time to look up at the canopy of the tree over your heads and observe the shapes of the sky between the branches. It’s really beautiful.
Take a look under your feet and see if you can spot any spiders making their webs, or insects scurrying around under the leaves. There might even be some green moss. It’s always worth getting down on your knees and smelling the moss and putting your hands on it to feel how soft it is – Nature’s pillows.
Make a Wreath
Wreaths are a lovely thing to make and hang on a Hall Door. But they can also be hung on Shed Doors or even inside the house. You can buy brass rings and add Moss to it to soften it up. And then make small bunches of other plant material and wire them on. It takes a bit of dexterity and you do need the right floristry wire to make it easier to manipulate.
An easy way to make a natural wreath is this:
- Gather together trailing branches of climbing plants like Clematis, Wisteria or Honeysuckle that are probably dangling over walls or in laneways
- Cut them to about 1.5m long pieces and clean off any old leaves so you have 4 or 5 long twisty tendrils
- Get some gardening twine if you don’t have any wire, or even a cable tie or two – the twine is the most natural and bio-degradable
- Lay the tendrils on a table or even just on the ground, all roughly the same length and line them up together
- Tie the tops of the tendrils together with the twine, wire, cable tie
- Twist the tendrils around each other, or plait them. You’re aiming to make a closed circle of the soft branches
- You weave the tendrils between each other to keep the circular shape – this can be tricky but bear with it as the shape will emerge
- Close the circle and tie it together with a small piece of twine/wire/cable tie
- Then you can add any foliage you like – Ivy is great as it’s long and tendrilly and very pliable. Seedheads, bits of twigs, ferns can be inserted into the wreath or they can be tied in with the twine or wire. You can add flowers and pine cones again by tying the twine around them to the wreath. You can use one long piece of twine and wind it around the bits and twist it inside the wreath and back around the outside again and again
- Then when you’ve finished you can make a knot at the back and cut off any straggly bits of twine
- Tie pretty ribbons to the bottom to give it a finishing touch and hang it on a door
If you hang the wreath outdoors small birds will probably land on it and take some bits to make their nests. This is great and you could also tie some Fat Balls to the wreath to make it a Bird Feeding Wreath.
Birds in Winter
Birds prefer berries and seedheads in the winter so if you have any in the garden don’t tidy them away until March. Birds can be seen picking the bark off fruit trees as they have sweet bark, so small Tits, Wrens and Robins love to nip away hidden from view on the branches. They will also be making nests so bits of twigs fallen on the ground are perfect for them. So there is no need to be tidying up your garden as the messier it is the better for our flying friends.
Make sure there is always some water in a bowl for birds – they also like to clean their wings in the water so it be a few centimetres deep without being dangerous for kids.
Bird feeders with Bird food is good and you can make your own bird food too:
Suet and seeds and nuts – melt the suet in a pot on the hob, mix in the seeds and nuts, spoon out small ball shapes and leave to harden on a baking tray for a few hours or in fridge. While the mixture is still pliable you can add a length of twine inside the ball and tie a knot at the bottom end. When it hardens this will be the hanging mechanism to hang the feeder off a tree.
You can also easily put peanut butter on a spoon and smear it onto a large pine cone. Tie twine around the cone and hang it in the garden.
Easy for small hands to do.
Spring Bulbs
Really all Spring Bulbs should be in the ground by Christmas but if you have some leftover and rotting in the shed you’re better to get them planted in the soil outside. They will probably flower in a few months but it might be later than usual.
- Dig a hole 3 times as deep as the bulb itself and you can plant a group together by digging a large hole
- Lay the bulbs in the hole making sure they don’t touch each other
- Plant the bulbs so the roots are facing down and touching the bottom of the soil and the tips or the shoots are pointing upwards towards the sun
- Then push the dug-up soil back on top of the bulbs, give it a little push with your hands and just wait and watch for the little shoots to pop up
Stay warm and stay outside!
