Sunflowers. I assume you would plant them in the Spring there. They grow quickly, and are impressive, and you can let the heads ripen, and birds come to eat the seeds. Only draw back is that you will get volunteers the next Spring, but they are easy to pull up if where you don't want them.

Jackie

If you're looking for roses you might want to start them with something easy and fool proof like Knock Outs or Icebergs. They grow and bloom all season with little care. If those don't appeal maybe some pretty little mini roses might do the trick too. The little blooms are cute and the girls will love them.

Thanks Jackie and Seil for your input.
why didn't I think of that ,sunflowers are a wonderful idea.You reminded me I want to plant some in my yard after seeing the magnificent towering sunflowers my neighbor grew this past summer.
Thinking in rose terms I was trying to come up with some that might not suffer too much if it's watered with chocolate milk and run over by their Barbie sports car.
The super fancy roses I read about on this forum are all that I am slightly familiar with. I will look up the knock outs, iceberg and mini roses to see if any are relatively thornless.
Come to think of it, maybe I need some foolproof roses for my garden too.

My daughter planted sunflowers every year with my dad and now that she's grown he still plants sunflowers for her in his veggie garden. It's a great memory and she loves seeing those sunflowers every year. We would start them off as seeds in a 6 pack container and then plant them after they grew, that way the birds wouldn't eat the seeds if we planted straight in the ground. The mini roses are a good idea and some have really cute names like Cupcake.

Boncrow
Thank you for the story about your Dad and Daughter's tradition.
There are beautiful varieties of sunflowers, I might get Teddy Bear and sell a crop of starters for a nickel apiece at our spring yard sale to make my money back.
Looks like Cupcake would be a perfect rose for the girls yard
Linda

Boncrow
Thank you for the story about your Dad and Daughter's tradition.
There are beautiful varieties of sunflowers, I might get Teddy Bear and sell a crop of starters for a nickel apiece at our spring yard sale to make my money back.
Looks like Cupcake would be a perfect rose for the girls yard
Linda

How about one or more old, fragrant Polyanthas? Sweet, tough, plants are a reasonable size for little girls to reach, and with the reflowering and the hips there's always something going on. I just looked up 'Anne-Marie de Montravel' and read in the comments section that it went through a bad zone 5 winter with no problems. Don't know if others are as hardy.
My thoughts on a garden for little girls are purely speculative, but bulbs and violets comes to mind: the former sprout thrillingly in late winter, and both are fragrant. I don't know how hardy the scented violets are, though.
Melissa

Melissa
If you read this again I am enamored by that little rose you suggested. I was just looking along similar lines last night at bouquet parfait.
My sister and I wore gray derby hats 55 years ago, the tiny features of Anne-Marie M remind me of the vintage millinery flowers.
Our maintenance man at the apartments cut down a ginkgo tree that I have standing in the dining room for making a rose trellis in Spring. A few ginkgo fairy furniture pieces would look so at home under a AMdMontravel bush.
A couple of days ago I learned there is a Post Falls Garden club, and after one phone call I guess I am a member now, and will hopefully learn about bulbs and areas that are total mysteries to me.
When you breed a rose you want to put into production, I'd like to be a customer.
Linda

For some reason, I think the rose, The Fairy, would be suitable for a child, though it is not fragrant.

As a little girl I loved the humble portulaca -- and I noticed my daughter liked them, too. They come up so easily from seed.

Children also like dicentra (now lamprocapnos) -- or "Lady-in- the-Bath." Also columbine, which has another name: "Doves-Around-a-Dish"; Johnny-Jump-up; and Hollyhocks, which can be used to make doll or fairy skirts.

Sweet peas and nasturtium also are beloved -- and good for growing on teepees.

For more ideas, Alice Morse Earle's Flower Lore of New England Children (1895) is floating around the web somewhere: http://www.unz.org/Pub/AtlanticMonthly-1895apr-00459
and I believe her other books are out of copyright and probably also available for download.

Here is a link that might be useful: teepees on Pintrest

This post was edited by monarda on Sat, Dec 13, 14 at 12:52

Monarda
Your ideas brought to memory forgotten flowers.
After decades of container gardening on my concrete apartment porches , I had forgotten about "Ladies in the Bathtub". We used to pull the sides apart to make the lady pop up.
My son has a huge field for the girls that is mostly prairie grass.
I have never been there but it is going to be a beautiful place of GardenWeb advice put to practice.

I also thought of polyantha roses, and some do have fun names for children: Marshmallow Fluff, Lovely Fairy, China Doll, Pink Pet (aka Caldwell Pink). I have heard that many polyantha roses are hardy - I believe there was a post on these forums about that a year or two ago. Perhaps looking at miniature roses would give you a larger selection regarding hardiness and fun names.

Another idea is something small and edible such as alpine strawberries, cherry tomatoes, raspberries. I'm not really sure what would be most suitable for your area.

Plants that produce lots of flowers for picking bouquets are also nice. Sweet peas, cosmos, and zinnias are all easy to grow from seed. The taller varieties of zinnias have longer stems for cutting bouquets - like Benary Giants, Blue Point, and Raggedy Ann - but the shorter varieties produce lots of cute smaller flowers.

You might like fragrant plants for touching or picking leaves to smell, such as mints, lemon balm, lemon verbena, thyme, rosemary, etc. I don't know how hardy these plants are, so perhaps they may have to be used as annuals where you are.

I planted bat faced cuphea for my children when they were small, and they really liked the little purple faces with red ears. I know this would not be hardy for you, as it only sometimes makes it through my much milder winters. The newer hybrids have larger, showier flowers, but they have lost the distinct bat faces.

Perhaps plants that attract butterflies would be nice. Dill and parsley will attract black swallowtails - the children could watch how fast the caterpillars grow as they eat the plants. Here in Houston I grow asclepias tuberosa just for monarch butterflies. They mostly eat the plants down to bare stocks, but fortunately it reseeds readily and grows quickly in my climate.

As a child, I loved violets, honeysuckle (we pulled these flowers apart to suck the "honey"), hollyhocks, and the older varieties of snap dragons that snap when you gently squeeze each side of the flower. I still prefer growing these taller varieties today.

Years ago when my children were young, I bought the book "Sunflower Houses: Garden Discoveries for Children of All Ages" by Sharon Lovejoy. I believe that this has since been updated. This author has also written a book called "Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots: Activities To Do in the Garden". I have never read this one, so I am not sure how similar it is to the first book. Your library may very well have a copy, or you could probably purchase a used copy inexpensively on Amazon.

Here is an older thread on GardenWeb regarding fun things for children in the garden. Perhaps you will see some ideas that appeal to you in it.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/potager/msg022119097413.html

This post was edited by plantloverkat on Sat, Dec 13, 14 at 14:52

Duplicate post deleted.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/potager/msg022119097413.html

This post was edited by plantloverkat on Sat, Dec 13, 14 at 14:46

I was trying to remember Sharon Lovejoy's name -- I had Sunflower Houses, when my children were young. Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots looks great, too.

Some of the best activities, though, are spontaneous and unplanned. Unstructured time in a lovely, peaceful environment is such a gift for children these days.

Plantloverkat
those bat faced flowers are very cute.
To plant herbs will get those little girls making gourmet mud pies.
I went through looking up every miniature rose at Burlington nursery
and have not come to a decision, but at least I'll have a good crop of companion plants for Rd Violettes.
Thanks everyone for book, plant and activity ideas.
These girls will no doubt love the garden as we do.

Wild flowers as they can prepare the ground -- not really needed but they don't need to know that -- plant the seeds by tossing them all over the place, then stomping on them. (They should love doing that) If you have birds coming to a feeder you may want to cover the area with a net as the seeds do not need to be covered with dirt. From then on all they have to do is keep the ground moist until they flowers come up. Get low growing plants so they don't overwhelm the kids in size. California Poppies look great as well as Baby Breath, and Cosmos.
Make sure you get plants for your neck of the woods.

If you have room, a row of corn with each plant planted a week from the others would give them something to eat from THEIR garden each week. Plant each seed a foot apart.
Plant only annual flowers so each year you can vary what will come up. Ground preparation will get rid of most weeds from the previous year.

That reminds me -- I once assisted a horticultural friend in planting a roof garden (in large containers) at a school for special needs children here in Brooklyn and she liked to include red popping corn. Children can plant the whole ear and it comes up as a plant with red leaves, as I recall.

I always picked bunches of flowers for my mom when I lived in northern Pa. We grew pansies, violas and johnny jump ups. There was wild for-get-me nots growing nearby. Lilies of the valley have a nice sweet fragrance and they are perennial.

I want to enthusiastically second the notion of growing edibles for kids in this age range. My kids are now 12, but they still wait eagerly for the first signs of red on the strawberries and cherry tomatoes (the former at a nice height for young kids), and eat my snow peas and green beans off the vines before I can pick them. Lettuce is a quick reinforcer, and there are some "easter egg" radishes that are cute and come in a variety of colors, that can be eaten within 40 days of planting. Patience isn't the strongest suit in this age group, so you want some instant gratification as much as possible.

Among other plants, you really want the fun of snapdragons. I showed my kids what my mom showed me, how to pick off the heads and make "dragons" chop at each other and they still love it. The spring bulbs are fantastic, as they bloom quickly after the long winter, and reliables like the cut-and-come-again zinnias would be good.

I agree that any roses should be low growing and relatively low thorn which makes the minis from Burlington ideal. I definitely would stay with the shrubs (like the Easy Elegance roses) for long-term appeal, but anything interactive like the annuals needs to be in front of those thorns. There's always time to develop an appreciation for more subtle rose beauties - all of us are still learning that too!

Cynthia

You could also plant a tree, either a single tree for everyone or a tree for each. A dwarf Japanese lance leaf maple in the front yard would look great. It would also allow them to visit 'their' tree years from now without the owners even knowing it should you sell and move away.

Many more thanks to Toolbelt, Monarda, Zacky, Cynthia,
I never expected so much help, and splendid ideas that never would have occurred to me.
This is going to take some going through again to take down notes.
The girls will love the stomping seeds idea, they have had lots of practice stomping their little feet.
A few organic pansies and violets floating in their tea party drinks, or on top of a cupcake would rival White House dessert.
Last year the local nursery had a big barrel of Monrovia thornless raspberries I wanted to buy but they sold out, Nothing is better than a sun warmed raspberry for breakfast.
They are renting the property, but when the day comes for buying, planting a fruit tree for each child is a happy thought ...
From the sound of all this they will be starting a farm, maybe we better throw in some chickens too.
Linda

One more ideaâ¦.. hey you started this so donâÂÂt blame us⦠hee hee

Super impose a grid onto a picture of (the kids choice) Mickey Mouse. Then set off an area in your sonâÂÂs field the size you want the picture to be and remove the prairie grass. Layout a string grid right on top of the ground, then using some flour to sprinkle on the ground draw the outline of Mickey. Next sew different colored wildflowers so you will end up with a picture of Micky Mouse.

Now if youâÂÂre smart youâÂÂll supervise your son in doing all of the aboveâ¦..:-)))

Have fun and enjoy those kids.

That's an outrageous idea Toolbelt.
I wonder if anyone will think it was an alien visitation...

Sure they will, remember the crop circles???