Raise Up a Child

Kids. Well, that about says it all, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s grandkids or your kids or neighborhood, or church, or friends, or relatives, but there are kids who need each of us for one thing or another. They need to be taught how to handle money. It doesn’t grow on trees.

So teach them about the value of gardening. If you have a garden set aside a space for each young person you want to mentor to plant a couple of things. Help them select easy to grow plants that will create a success story for them. Work with them to establish a regular weeding and watering schedule. More importantly, be with them, talk to them about the value of what they are doing.

You already know the benefits. Gardening calms the soul. Working with the earth cannot be compared to anything else. It can be done independently or with others but there is a peace to it. And that peace leads to appreciation. Gardening is good exercise and hard work but allows the gardener to stand in awe of the amazement created. This can do wonders for self-esteem and confidence.

If the plants chosen are edible, great! There are life lessons galore in raising something that can be placed on a plate to provide part of a meal, even if it is parsley, rosemary, or thyme. Let ‘em do it. This is sage advice.

Perhaps your understudy deserves a set of gardening tools. Loan yours, under supervision and make it just the simple ones. It’s a toss up as to whether a youngster will want his/her own tools or be delighted to inherit yours. You decide; there’s no wrong answer. They need to learn to clean tools and put them away. It’s part of the experience.

If you are not a gardener at heart but instead a grand appreciator then you still have a role to play with the next generation. Develop their love for the landscape created by plants, be it a field of corn or a pond providing homes for amphibians or the luxury of a designed landscape in a front yard. Talk about the selection of different plantings, how annuals differ from perennials, how evergreens really are ever-green, and take them places they will see landscapes flourish.

Yes, the city skylines are beautiful in their own ways. Nothing replaces the wonder of seeing a flower reaching for the sky or a tree beating its hidden heart and roaring as it grows, year after year. Visit botanical gardens, visit nurseries, wander on trails.

There are all sorts of places gardening may lead. There is a lot of life in the dirt. Study it. There are things to do with flowers: give them, press them, divide them. Teach the next generations well. Teach them we are caretakers of Earth.

The best place gardening will lead is right back to your relationship with this child, to your respective hearts. In times to come each of you will remember the time…