Kids Korner – Caterpillar Planter in the Garden

Welcome to the Kids Korner – the place where we show you how to bring your little ones into the garden. We bring you ideas on how to spend time with your children, bringing out their creativity and enabling you to spend quality time with them in the outdoor sunshine.

SWING THROUGH SPRING COMPETITION

Enter our Create a Caterpillar Planter Competition and stand a chance to win a garden swing for your little one and R500 loaded onto your Lifestyle Loyalty Club card!

Simply tag us on Instagram or Facebook with pictures of you creating your own caterpillar planter and use the hashtag #swingthroughspring and tag us @lifestylehomegarden on Instagram and @LifestyleHomeGarden on Facebook so we can see your creations – before 17 December 2018!

Our panel of judges will choose the funnest photo to win the prize!

For more info and a step by step guide to making your own caterpillar planter see below…

This week we show you how to make a Caterpillar Planter for the garden. Wooden crates or planters are placed next to each other and form the shape of a caterpillar weaving its way through the garden.

LEVEL OF DIFFICULTY: MEDIUM.

You will need:

• Wooden crates or planters. We used the 300 x 300 x 200 mm planters from our outdoor gardening section. 
• Acrylic paint in various colours or spraypaint. We used a few colours for the crates. Involve your kids in the colour choices.
• Newspaper
• Strong weather-proof adhesive.
• Plastic pot saucers/trays in a few sizes. Alternatively stove top covers will work well too.
• Wire or pipe cleaners

How to Make your Caterpillar planter

Step 1: Decide which planters or boxes you will use. We used three, but you can make a longer caterpillar by adding more crates. This just means there is so much more space for planting.

Step 2: Spread out the newspaper to cover which ever surface you are using. Spray paint the boxes or use acrylic paint. Allow the kids to take over here and really let them have free reign.

Step 3: With different colours, paint the plastic pot saucers. Allow everything to dry.

Note: Keep aside a large pot saucer for the face, two medium white ones and two small black ones for his eyes. We used a large black pot saucer for the face, two medium sized ones for the eyes and two tiny black ones for the centre of the eyes.

We placed heavy rocks on the pot covers as we glued them to keep them in place whilst allowing to dry.

TIP: glue the medium sized ones first, allow to dry, then glue the smallest ones.

Step 4: With strong adhesive, glue the pot saucers to the boxes in random patterns, as if the caterpillar had dots.

TIP: do this is steps. On the sides of the boxes that will be facing outwards, glue pot saucers on one side. Allow to dry. This takes at least an hour. Flip the boxes over and glue the other spray painted pot saucers. Allow to dry.

Step 5: Attach the pot saucers set aside above, to the front of one box, to make the face.

Step 6: Make two curly pieces of wire/pipe cleaners with straight ends, and attach to the inside of the front box, to create feelers. We used blue fuzzy pipe-cleaners (you can find them at the Hobbycraft section at Lifestyle Home Garden), or you can attach sphagnum moss to the wires so that they are living feelers. They will appreciate watering with a spray bottle every so often if you choose to do this.

Step 7: Position your boxes behind each other in the garden to look like a caterpillar. The box with the face should be in front.

Step 8: Using good quality potting soil mixed with generous amounts of compost, plant each one with colourful flowers, vegetable seedlings and herbs.

Don’t have the tools?

We at Lifestyle have a fantastic array of bright and cheery kids (and adults) gumboots, gardening tools for little ones, knee pads for the adults, as well as every shade of gorgeous floral gardening gloves! Pop in to see our range.

What should we plant?

Lifestyle has a myriad of beautiful spring flowers in stock, including Clivias, Argyranthemums, Bush geraniums and stunning varieties of lavender. Also check out our heirloom seedlings for fantastic vegetable planting options. See |HERE| to learn about container gardening and |HERE| if you like the idea of growing tomatoes in your boxes and need to know how.

Spring is here and we are all loving the sunshine. It’s time to get outdoors and get creative!

We would love to see what you and your children get up to in the garden! Tag us on Instagram using the hashtags  #lifestylehomegarden and #lifestylekidskorner and the tag @LifestyleHomeGarden so that we can see your posts!