If your family is going to grow any plant, lavender is one of the heroes! It’s one of my favourites for growing with kids, and we have always had at least one variety growing at the Secret Garden Learning HQ. Why? Well it not only looks and smells gorgeous, but it’s a winner for boosting biodiversity and for nature crafts and play.
For years, the little Secret Gardeners have harvested our lavender flowers, then made lavender soap for their families’ Christmas gifts. We’ve used it in cakes and on biscuits, as a lemonade garnish and as these ‘wands’, which in my experience are super useful A) hung up to add fragrance to rooms and wardrobes or B) used as little swords for battle play!
Lavender is super hardworking. As a perennial, lavender grows back every year, and as it comes in so many varieties – even pink! – you can have a plant anywhere from a window box or doorstep plant pot (check out dwarf varieties for this) to a garden border. It’s a Mediterranean plant so is drought tolerant and can withstand the dry weather we’ve been having here is the UK. Its fragrant flowers make it super popular with pollinators, and people like me who like to concoct fun smelly stuff with kids.
Lavender is best harvested on a sunny morning, when it’s dry. Kids love using their little scissors to snip the bottom of the long stems. To make the wands, tie some ribbon or twine around a bunch of 10-15 lavender stems just below the flowers. Then bend each stem below the tie upwards, around the flowers, and gather them at the top. You can either tie the stems and finish here (making a lavender bag) or weave the ribbon/ twine in and out of the stems from the tie all the way to the tips (a lavender wand). A nice fine-motor activity for little fingers!