Get Grandkids Into Gardening

by Nina Sable and Claudia Shepherd Sable Homes Metro-West, Downsizing and Estates 04/05/2024

Mark Dwyer has gardened all his life but lately he has an assistant: his 2-year-old grandson, Miles.

“He’s just getting interested in nurturing,” says Dwyer, 53 , who lives in Janesville , Wisconsin, and is the garden manager at the 3-acre Edgerton Hospital Healing Garden. So far, Miles is in charge of a few houseplants (including an echeveria he dubbed Tarimba) and a low-growing plant container in Dwyer’s yard.

Dwyer is a fan of encouraging adults to get kids of all ages into gardening. There’s the learning experience of success and failure as well as the bond it creates with grandparents, says Dwyer, who is the former director of horticulture at Rotary Botanical Gardens in Janesville.

“I’ll never begrudge that time spent,” he says about gardening with Miles and his own two daughters when they were young. “Even if it doesn’t create lifelong gardeners, it creates that lifelong bond, really.”

If you’re ready to share your own interest in gardening or just want to have some horticultural fun with the kids in your life, here are some ways to make the garden the place to be. Shared from AARP Website

About the Author

Nina Sable and Claudia Shepherd Sable Homes Metro-West, Downsizing and Estates

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