Fun in the Garden

Round up the kids, and experience the outdoors in a new way.

More than just flowers grow at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia. When adults and kids visit the new Children's Garden, their understanding of the natural world increases, too, and that's a wonderful thing to watch.

Play and Learn

All around the 2-acre plot, children explore with abandon. Some climb the low-hanging limbs of a mulberry tree. Others make believe that they're living in an international village. Still others help harvest vegetables. Almost everyone makes at least one trip to the top of the handicap-accessible tree house.

"A lot of kids these days don't have the opportunity to play outside," says education manager Randee Humphrey. "It's important for them to make a connection with the natural world so that as adults they can make informed decisions about the environment."

See, Touch, Understand

"Don't touch!" is something you rarely hear in this garden. A small army of staff and volunteers encourages the shorter set to observe, touch, and smell as many plants as possible. There are also places to play in sand, dig in dirt, and splash through water.

Youngsters squeal with delight when they discover earthworms squirming in the dirt they've been digging. A volunteer lays a plump specimen in one child's outstretched hand, assuring her that worms don't bite. "It tickles," she says, giggling.

-CASSANDRA M. VANHOOSER

Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden: 1800 Lakeside Avenue, Richmond, VA 23228; www.lewisginter.org or (804) 262-9887.

For More Info

Richmond Editors' City Guide: editorscityguide.com

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Aug 2007
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