Gardening With Children, Gardening and Little Green Fingers.

Gardening With Children always intrigued me. With my grandson coming to an age where he actually enjoys being in the garden with me, I decided to do some research.

One chilly evening while browsing through endless gardening blogs, I thankfully stumbled upon Dawn Isaac's. I immediately positioned myself on a comfortable chair and with a hot cuppa tea in hand read not only the more recent blogs entries, but the archives as well.

Not long after, the idea of an interview about Gardening With Children came to me. An opportunity to share her enthusiasm for gardening with children. Below is the interview Dawn so graciously granted.

Hello Dawn

I'm very excited for the chance to share with my readers your passion for gardening with children. Thank you for granting us an interview.

Doris: Please introduce yourself and tell us about your family.

Dawn: I'm a garden designer and mother to three young children - Ava, Oscar and Archie. Having left London nearly 6 years ago, we now live in a small Cambridgeshire village where, at last, I have a garden larger than a postage stamp.

Like most garden-obsessives, I spend hour upon hour outside, but rather than this be time away from my family, I wanted to find ways for us to garden together which is the quest I chronicle on Little Green Fingers.

Doris: Let's start our questions with Your Blog, Little Green Fingers, getting Children Hooked on Gardening has just celebrated its first anniversary. Congratulations! How did this blog come about?

Dawn: I was taking a break from designing following my third child but I found myself itching to start a new project. Writing was a new interest so I decided to combine this is my two abiding passions - gardening and my family.

Doris: You seem very involved in your children's pre-school gardening club. Did you start this club?

Dawn: Yes - it was something I had wanted to do for ages. We live right opposite the pre-school - in fact, if it wasn't for the road in between, I would be tempted to simply put in a zip wire to deliver my children there - so I'd been staring at their little patch of earth for many months wanting to bring it to life.

Doris: Most people would love to get more beneficial insects to their garden. You write in one of your blogs about building a mini wildlife stack. What exactly is that?

Dawn: It's really just a weatherproof multi storey stack made with bricks and wood. On each 'floor' the children put in various materials which can be used by hibernating insects from hollow stems and drilled logs to dry leaves and old tiles.

Doris: You seem very creative with bountiful craft ideas for children and gardening. For those less creative folks, can you share two or three tips?

Dawn:

• Never throw anything out - it's amazing what you can create using 'rubbish'
• Prepare as much as you can in advance so that the children won't get bored waiting
• Finally, just give it a go. Even if things don't work out as your hoped, the kids will enjoy the process

Doris: Moving on from the Blog, you also have a business partnership web site, Designing Gardens. In reviewing your portfolio, you show and describe different designs such as Contemporary, Modern, Traditional, Family. Do you have a personal favourite?

Dawn: My favourite design will always be the next one - I find I prefer looking forward! From a design perspective, I love traditional gardens - with a twist.

Doris: Most of us can only dream of attending the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, yet I read that you have in your possession a Silver-Gilt award medal from the 2005 RHS Chelsea Flower Show for creating the Microsoft SoGo (Small Office Garden Office) Garden. Please do tell us about it.

Dawn: The Chelsea Flower Show is a slightly surreal experience - it's months and months of work and planning for a garden which lasts less than a week. With so little time to make your mark myself and Lizzie Taylor wanted to do something a little different - hence our garden office pod creation which the judges said looked like it had landed from outer space.

Happily, I still have some of the pants from the show growing in my garden so I get a reminder of our show time each May when I look out of my window.

Doris: Dawn, I look forward to your next year of garden blogging and many thanks for allowing us this interview.

I have one last question. Looking back at these past twelve months of blogging, what post became the most insightful and/or gratifying to you?

Dawn: Probably the most gratifying post would be this A Garden Of Their Own because at long last I gave my kids their own gardens and I think this is the most effective way of all for getting children hooked on gardening.

About Dawn Isaac, in her own words,

Once upon a time I led a glamorous life. I designed gardens for fabulous clients on big budgets. I created an award-winning Chelsea Flower Show Garden. I wore clothes that weren't decorated with baby vomit. Then I had a family... Now I live in a tiny Cambridgeshire village and, between doing the school run, changing nappies and dealing with tantrums, I try to pass on my love of gardening to my three children - Ava (6), Oscar (4) and Archie (1).

Dawn Isaac's Blog: Little Green Fingers

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