When June Hutson and her staff went to update beds last spring in the children's garden of the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center, they first took out their pruning shears.
Then, on a tall stand of evergreens in the center bed, they lopped off tree tops to create the sloping lines of a roof.Then they cut windows, smack in the middle of evergreen "walls," so that children could run into the "house" and peek out through leafy squares.
In other beds, which are replanted each year, Hutson and staff installed:
- A morning glory house, a smaller structure for children to climb into. It is made with poles on three sides and morning glory vines that are planted at the base and trained up and over the poles. If children get to the garden early enough, they're likely to have flowers of the plant brushing the tops of their heads.
- A bee garden, complete with a Winnie the Pooh statue and bee-attracting plants with such funny names as zinnia, monarda, Verbena bonariensis and Gomphrena. The bees and plants are there, Hutson says, "to show children that bees aren't necessarily to be afraid of. They have a purpose. They pollinate flowers to make honey."
- A "Dirt Made My Lunch" vegetable bed, fashioned after the children's song of the same name. It features such salad plants as a lettucelike edible amaranth, tomatoes, green peppers and onion. For sandwiches, there is wheat for bread, a ring of strawberry plants for the jelly that goes with peanut plants and peanut butter. And Aztec-blue popcorn plants serve as the dessert portion.
The St. Louis gardens are a favorite of garden-minded adults who want to interest their children in nature or for parents who want to see the displays and bring one or two of the ideas home for a backyard re-creation.
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