Small garden design

Sunflower House

Items needed:

Hoe

Sunflower seeds or seedlings

Multi-Colored Indian popcorn seeds

White clover

Chamomile

Catnip

Peppermint

Spearmint

Yarrow

Cosmos

Carrots

Other Large Mammoth Flowers

Directions:

Mark off a ten x ten square in yard, preferably full sun to partial shade, where you would like to place your garden.

Next, take your hoe and dig and chop, or plow, a section of ground in which you want to place your garden house.

Next, dig a furrow and hoe a shallow moat around the furrow.

Take sunflower seeds or seedlings and plant in furrow, spacing evenly apart. I suggest alternating a mammoth variety, which grows about eight feet tall, and a smaller variety, which grows about four feet tall.

Next, plant a row of Indian corn. These are great for adding a splash of color to the scenery.

Add another row of sunflowers, alternating between the mammoth eight feet tall ones and the smaller four feet ones.

On the inside of the house, plant a thick carpet of white clover, leaving about a two-foot border around each edge.

Next, plant a row of chamomile and catnip around the edges, both of which are reputed to give off aromas soothing to children.

Next plant two rows using peppermint and spearmint, and make a border around the chamomile and catnip. All of these plants are edible. All of these plants can be trampled and recover quickly.

Finally, in the corners of your sunflower house plant yarrow, which seems to be able improve the health of everything that grows around it. Along two of the edges, plant cosmos. These will grow six feet tall and be a colorful border for your house after the sunflowers whither and die. Next, along one edge, plant a border of carrots.

Along the other edge, plant a border of radishes.

The carrots and radishes are treasures for your little ones to find while playing in their house.

Be sure to water your plants weekly, more often during the hot and dry summer months.

Since children like to be involved in activities, have them help you with the house, or rather help them build a house or garden of their own.

To make your sunflower house a little more “home-like,” place a few tall flower pot holders on the inside and outside of your sunflower house.

Next, have your children fill flowerpots with soil and plant their favorite flowers, seeds, or seedlings inside the flowerpots and water thoroughly. Then, have children hang their pots on the flower pot hangers. Some suggestions to use for your flower pots is the green running vines or flowering vines, ferns, or any other type of flower than flows over the sides of the baskets but is easy to maintain.

These flowers can be placed on hangers to accentuate the entrance to their house, as well as placed in the corners of their house for more enjoyment.

Another fun thing to do with your house is plant a row or two of strawberries along the outside, just in front of the sunflowers. These are a delicious treat welcoming children to their home.

Along with the flowers and the children will also come butterflies and maybe some bumblebees. If you are prone to bees or wasps, be sure to spray flowers regularly.