Seeds for Tomorrow-Making Newspaper Seed Ornaments

My son, who is currently a 6th grader, participated in a 4H speech contest last year. As we all know, public speaking is among the top fears of the general public. My son was therefore not unique in his disdain for public speaking, but he practiced thoroughly and came in first place advancing to the next round three times before we had to back out of the final contest due to scheduling conflicts. The topic of his speech was "How to Make a Newspaper Seed Ornament." If it's good enough for a champion presentation at a 4H contest, who am I to keep it from you. So here you go. Instructions for an easy homemade Christmas gift.

Homemade gifts are a wonderful surprise during the holidays. When that gift can grow for seasons to come it’s an extra special treat. Seed paper ornaments are an easy, inexpensive and quick project that can brighten your loved ones’ homes and yard. Even better, it’s a project for all ages.
The basics of this project include embedding small seeds into recycled paper. Seed paper ornaments can be used as adornments for gifts or the holiday tree. During spring plant the ornaments directly into the soil and watch the flowers grow.

Materials:
* Newspaper
* Blender
* Cookie Cutters
* Flower Seeds
* Window Screen
* Towel
* Bowl
* Scissors
* Toothpick
* Ribbon
* Label (See below)
To make seed paper ornaments collect several sheets of non-glossy paper. Newspaper works well, but colored paper scraps are a good choice if you want more decorative ornaments.

Shred the paper into small pieces and soak in a bowl of water for several hours. Put the soaked paper into a blender and blend it into a pulp. Be sure there is enough water to avoid clogging the blender and damaging the motor. Pour the paper pulp back into the bowl and drain out most of the water. Don’t wring the water out of the paper though because that will make it difficult to incorporate the seeds.

Select a cookie cutter with the desired shape for your seed ornament. Place the cookie cutter on a screen (window screens work great) over a cloth towel. If you don’t have a screen you can modify this step to use what you have available, but the screen does provide a nice surface that allows the water to drain from the paper pulp. Fill the cookie cutter mold with the paper pulp ensuring all of the spaces of the cookie cutter are filled.

Sprinkle the seeds on top of the paper pulp within the cookie cutter. Wildflower mixes are a good option for this project because they include hardy flower varieties. Small seeds embed into the pulp better than larger ones. The seeds should not be processed in the blender as this could damage the seeds and make them nonviable.
After the seeds are evenly dispersed, gently press down on the pulp inside the cookie cutter to allow excess water to drain out through the screen. Depending on how wet your paper is you may need to replace the towel with a dry one.

Use the tip of a pencil, toothpick or other pointed tip to create a small hole at the top of your ornament. Once the seed paper ornament has dried, thread a piece of ribbon through this hole and attach a label with an explanation of what makes this ornament special and how to care for it.
This homemade gift is sure to be a hit for seasons to come. Get the family involved and get your hands dirty putting your creative gardening skills to work.


I typed up simple labels on cardstock to attach to each of the newspaper seed ornaments. Here is the text we used.:

"Handmade for you!
This ornament was made just for you with recycled, biodegradable paper and flower seeds. Use this ornament to decorate your home, then plant it beneath ¼” of potting soil in a sunny location after the risk of frost has passed. Keep the soil moist until seeds germinate. Enjoy your flowers!"

Great Garden Read: The Curious Garden

Written and illustrated by Peter Brown, The Curious Garden tells the story of a child who discovers a garden in an unusual place, an abandoned railroad. Much like the true story of the High Line Gardens, highlighted earlier in this blog, this book shows that gardens come in all shapes and sizes, and their gardeners can be any age. I love this book because it causes the reader to use his/her imagination to think of other unusual places that can be beautified through the introduction of nature. Introducing a garden into this busy city brought together a community of neighbors who didn't know each other previously. Children can be empowered to recognize the difference they can make through small, intentional actions.

(Image from Amazon.com.)
Activity Idea:
Have your students identify an area that would benefit from the introduction of a garden or naturalization through plants being added. They should explain why they think this change could be beneficial and design the space using plants appropriate for the area. Older students can be more specific with plant choices and other features they would add into the space. For a challenge, you can have students create a budget for their landscape and present to the class.

Garden Travels: High Line Gardens

If you're looking for a unique urban garden, this is the place to see. Located in Manhattan, New York, on the west side, the High Line Gardens grow 30 feet above the city hustle and bustle on a once abandoned railroad track. Built in the 1930's, trains traveled across these tracks for decades until interstate trucking took over. The tracks were threatened for demolition until advocates spoke out to reclaim this area. What was once an industrialized site is now a lush scene of natural beauty all because of the vision of a few key individuals.

The High Line gardens are a public facility opened daily for visitation. You can visit the website www.thehighline.org for hours and access points as well as a detailed history of the site.

This space has become a popular attraction for tourists and locals as a place to have picnics, visit with friends, and just enjoy the integration of urbanization and nature.

Garage Sale Garden: Terrariums

This weekend at the garage sales I found this old glass jar with a glass lid that is attached with a metal latch. I loved the look of the aged jar and loved even more that it only cost 50 cents. So, I whisked it home and created this week’s edition of garage sale garden art by turning this glass jar into a terrarium.
Terrariums are small, enclosed containers used to grow plants and sometimes are used as habitats for certain types of animals. I love terrariums because they can be a mess-free, low maintenance indoor house plant. I have several terrariums throughout my home and have re-purposed glass containers from various sources into miniature greenhouses (a.k.a. terrariums). Terrariums are a great way to introduce the water cycle to children by observing how water evaporates from the soil, condenses on the sides of the container and then precipitates back to the soil.
Here’s how you can set up your own terrarium:
Locate a container that you want to use for your terrarium. An ideal container will have a lid that can easily be removed when necessary. The jar can be any size, but ideally about the size of a two-gallon milk jug. You want to make sure your plant(s) will have room to grow over-taking the container. The container needs to be clear or at least transparent to allow light to penetrate.
Place about 3-4 inches of moist soil in the bottom of your container. If you are using a smaller container, you can put in less, or for a larger container you can put in more. Make sure you have enough soil for the roots to spread and obtain water.

Plant your selected terrarium plant(s) in your container. My hand was too big for the opening of this container so I brought my son in to help. The plant you select should be a slow grower so it won’t outgrow the container quickly. Avoid using succulent plants because they don’t do as well in the moist conditions of a terrarium. For larger terrariums, you can add a couple of plants for variety. Here are some good plant selections for terrariums but it’s also fun to experiment with others.
• Artillery fern
• Aluminum plant
• Polka dot plant
• Pothos (in a larger terrarium)
• Croton
I prefer to plant recently rooted cuttings in my terrariums because they are smaller, will grow for a while in the container before needing to be re-planted, they are cheaper, and because they are easy to fit inside most container openings.
Once you have planted your terrarium, you can place the lid on top. Over the next several days/weeks monitor the terrarium to ensure it has the right level of moisture. If it is too damp inside, you may see mold growth and notice the plant(s) starting to rot. If this is happening, open the lid temporarily to allow the soil to dry a bit. If it is too dry you won’t see any condensation developing on the inside of the container. Add a little moisture to the soil, replace the lid, and watch for improved conditions over the next couple days. Repeat as needed until you see condensation forming.

You can also decorate your terrarium using rocks and other features inside the container. I have a young son who loves dinosaurs, so we have used some of his small dinosaur figurines to make one of our terrariums look like a prehistoric scene. Terrariums are very forgiving so don’t be afraid to experiment and have fun!

Here is a terrarium I created from a broken blender.

Here is the first terrarium I made using a glass container with a glass lid.

Great Garden Read: Tops and Bottoms

Tops and Bottoms, by Janet Stevens, is an entertaining story about a bear and a hare who decide to garden together. The hare tricks the lazy bear out of the season's harvest repeatedly as bear learns about the different edible plant parts. Although this story is geared toward a younger audience of K-2nd grade, it could be extended to an older classroom placing a stronger emphasis on the scientific components of the book, primarily plant parts.

Activity Idea:
Have students match pictures of different fruits and vegetables with the plant part that is edible. Here is a possible list to get you started:
Fruit/Vegetable (Edible Plant Part)
Carrots (Roots)
Lettuce (Leaves)
Tomato (Fruit)
Beets (Roots)
Celery (Stem)
Broccoli (Flower)
Wheat (Seeds)

Garden Travels: Luthy Botanic Garden

Today we visited the Luthy Botanic Garden in Peoria, Illinois. They were celebrating fall with a chrysanthemum display. There is a modest gift shop where we paid the very affordable admission ($2.50 for adults; Children 12 and under free). Then we meandered through the conservatory to find ferns, bromeliads, even a banana tree and a giant lemon tree. This was an exciting spot in the gardens, especially for my young son who enjoyed the feeling of being in a jungle. Once leaving the conservatory we wandered the paths through various gardens including a children's garden with imaginative sculptures.

The wildlife garden has a wonderful waterfall with a pond and houses for birds and butterflies. The overall size of the botanic garden isn't expansive but there is much to see in the confined space. There are open grassy areas for children to run free and paths that allow visitors to explore secluded gardens. A visit to this garden is a wonderful way to spend the day outside.



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Garage Sale Garden: Garden Chandelier

One of my favorite things to do is turn other people's junk into garden art. Recently I found this old, ugly chandelier at a garage sale and decided it too could be beautiful if given the chance. After only an hour or so of work and very minimal materials, the chandelier was no longer ugly. Here's what I did to create a Garage Sale Garden masterpiece.

...Garage Sale Garden Art!

Junk to...

• First I located this jewel at a garage sale. I knew I wanted something cheap so if it didn't work out I wouldn't be out much money. The chandelier I found was $2.00. 
• I removed all the wiring since that just added to the ugliness. I also removed the light sockets.
• This chandelier did not have screws to hold the glass light covers in place, so I wasn't sure how I was going to keep the glass on the chandelier once it was planted. Fortunately, once I removed the light sockets there was a small metal piece with a hole in it that I could run a piece of wire through. After some trial and error I discovered that I could put a rock on the inside of the glass and wrap the wire around it. The rocks were too big to fit through the hole in the bottom of the glass covers. Once I tightened the wire, the glass was held firmly enough that it wouldn't fall off the fixture.

If the light covers do not have screws to hold the
glass in place, be creative with a solution
to ensure the glass will not fall off the chandelier.

• Once I got all the light covers attached with the wire I added soil. 
• Finally I found some plants that I already had growing in the garden that could be separated into smaller pieces and transplanted into the glass light covers.

Because of the small size of these light covers, and now plant containers, check
the soil daily during warm weather to ensure the plants do not dry out.

• And there you have it! Garage Sale Garden Masterpiece. A unique piece of garden art that was inexpensive and easy to create.

When I hang this in the garden I may look for a string of solar lights to wrap
around the fixture.

One of the neat things about this chandelier is that it allows water to drain out the bottom of the glass covers because they are not sealed tight.