How to raise a garden addict: step 1

Toddler-friendly flowers, jungle trees and flowering vines for a weird, wild garden

Welcome to Lo fi life, a cheerfully unsophisticated newsletter about gardening, cooking and things that are good. Not subscribed yet? Click the button:

---

Hello readers old and new!

I have eight blisters on my hand - one at the base of every finger. And I don’t even mind because this is the kind of thing that only happens when I have flung myself into a new garden project. Our little boy turns one-and-a-half in four days and I have decided to cede about 1/5th of the back garden to him because I love him and because lately he has been waving hello to every slater we find amongst the mulch, kissing tiny snails and taking freshly unearthed worms to new, safe homes, cupped gently in his two tiny hands. Basically he breaks my heart with pride and joy on a daily basis and that sure as hell earns him a sizeable chunk of garden to get grubby in.

Before we had our baby I admit I struggled with the idea of relinquishing total control over the garden, with the thought of little fingers pulling out my spring bulbs or picking my tomatoes when they were still green. Actually becoming a parent has taught me two things. The first is that the fuzzy glow I feel when picking a perfectly ripe tomato counts for absolutely nothing compared to the pleasures of actually sharing my garden with my kid.

The second is that, so far at least, I can save a great many unripe fruits and vegetables from being picked prematurely by enthusiastically cultivating the bizarre family habit of gently patting our plants every time we see them. I’m not sure if this is a hack that only works for my boy, or if it might be generalisable, but I encourage you to try it. We spent the better part of two months gently patting a pumpkin before it was picked, and are now daily patting a very tiny apple. Patting, it seems, helps to prevent picking.

Anyhoo, I am now obsessed with making this new section of garden as weird and magical and kooky as possible, in the hopes that it will foster a lifelong garden addiction in my son. And I’ll share the process with you as I go - hopefully it might give you some ideas for things to try in your garden.

For today, I’m thinking about plants. Specifically, plants that are extra fun if you are two feet tall, and that won’t send you to the emergency room if you happen to shove them in your face. And I thought I’d share my list with you!

---

Note: this newsletter is a special one for my paying subscribers. Free subscribers get a sneak peak at a few ideas, but if you’d like to read it in full, you can upgrade your subscription via the button below.

Paid subscribers also get full access to all of my garden design guides, seasonal recipes, video diaries and my 8-part beginner garden course.

---

To start, I’ll show you the area I’m working with - it’s a largely bare patch of earth on one side of the garden, where a big Robinia tree was recently removed. I’ve spent the last week clearing a few tonnes of soil (hello blisters!) to get it all level, and have just added a crepe myrtle and a Mexican Hawthorne tree to (hopefully) start to block out my neighbours’ big wall as quickly as possible.

Initially, I thought I’d put a cubby in there, but now I’m thinking I’d rather the area be unstructured, with space for digging, space to build forts and shelters and generally mess around. My challenge is in working out how to make such a space aesthetically pleasing to the grown ups in the garden! For now though, let’s talk plants.

Plants to make your toddler swoon