BOOK REVIEWS

Great Gardens for Kids

Clare Matthews
Photography Clive Nichols
Published by Hamlyn
Distributed by Bookwise
$NZ29.95
Reviewed by Mike Gowing

THERE'S no doubt about the importance of gardens in kids' lives. In today's world the home garden offers a safe environment for activity and a creative alternative for screenaddicted youngsters.

With that in mind, anything that points parents and others in the right direction is a bonus, and this book falls into that category. Some of the themes here are a bit elaborate - including chapters on creating various themed gardens and details for staging children's garden festivities. Other tips are variations on tried and true themes, like the sandpit made from an old tyre, painted up with a mast and sail attached to make a yacht. The use of an old rolled steel joist to make a small stream and a rope "spider's web" climbing frame are ideas for the more ingenious.

There's plant-focused stuff here too, ranging from instructions on simple seed sowing to potato growing in pots. A useful book to kick-start gardening parents into projects to engage their children in the outdoors.

Reproduced with permission from the former Weekend Gardener magazine. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of the RNZIH