10 gardening gifts for children | Landscapes 4 Learning

Ten Christmas gift ideas for young gardeners

Photo by Filip Urban on Unsplash

Outdoor play is a precious and vital part of every child’s development. Providing children with opportunities to explore the natural world through creative play is one of the best things we as caregivers can give them.

With this in mind, and with Christmas fast approaching, why not give the little people in your life something to inspire a lifelong love of the garden? Here are ten of our favourite gardening and garden-related gift ideas for children.

A little gardeners set including trowels, a rake and a spade for digging and planting is a wonderful way to inspire creative, sensory play in the garden.

There are a huge variety of easy-to-grow vegetables or flower seed kits available to inspire young gardeners: wildflowers, tomatoes, onions, sweet peas and sunflowers to name just a few are all very popular with children. Buy them from any good garden centre or online. Even if you don’t have access to a garden or allotment there are plenty of fantastic plants you can grow indoors, including cacti, succulents, or even bonsai trees.

Mud kitchens have so much more to offer than mud pies and getting messy (although we’re all for mess and mud pies)! They encourage a range of imaginative learning opportunities, with the focus firmly on fun.

How about a set of sturdy kitchen utensils to go with your mud kitchen? (If you don’t have a mud kitchen it really doesn’t matter – you can just make-believe that you do!) These don’t have to cost the earth and you could even recycle some old equipment of your own.

If you don’t have a garden there are still lots of ways you can foster and encourage a love of plants and the outdoors. Books are simply the best for stimulating the imagination and are perfect for cultivating an interest in plants and horticulture. Usborne have a great range of gardening books for children that are sure to inspire and delight.

Terrariums are brilliant for cultivating mini ecosystems and for introducing children to the pleasures of gardening. They stay indoors (you don’t need a garden), they can be easy to put together, they’re highly creative and they look great, too. Robust, low maintenance and fun, there are plenty that are designed expressly with children in mind.

Wheelbarrows and watering cans make failsafe Christmas gifts for budding landscape gardeners. Little children love filling and emptying wheelbarrows and trundling them along; see the pride in their faces as they water their own seedlings and watch them grow.

You’ll never regret investing in a hammock if you’re lucky enough to have the space for one. Time spent in the fresh air is beneficial for all the family – what better way to enjoy the garden than by hanging out in a hammock? They make great dens, too!

Fairy garden gifts are perfect for Christmas and are guaranteed to inspire wonder and creativity in your little gardener. You can find fairy doors, tiny chairs and tables and all sort of other enchanting items online – or why not repurpose old toys and ornaments to create your own fairy kingdom? In need of some fairy garden inspiration? Find out how to transform your back garden into a magical fairyland.

Play with musical instruments has proven benefits for children of all ages, and the garden is an ideal place for making music. Percussion instruments lend themselves particularly well to the outdoors and make excellent gifts at any time of the year.

So wrap up warm this winter and get creative outside! At Landscapes for Learning we stock a variety of outdoor musical instruments including glockenspiels, pipe drums, cowbells, plus many more besides. Why not take a look at our outdoor construction toys and our range of planters/gardening equipment, too. Merry Christmas!