Activities for Garden Gatherings: Planting Design Tips

Marie Vidmar from the beautiful state of California, emailed to ask if she could use my planting design tips for a future plant trade day she was planning. She wanted to cut them out, place them in a tip jar, then have each person select one as they came in...but the image I had in my original post wasn't working for her.  

With her inspiration I reformatted that graphic into something that is now usable for a variety of garden gathering activities. Just click on the image below (or here) to download a four-page .pdf with the entire set of tip cards paired with some ideas of how to use them.

Try some of these activities at your next garden gathering:

• Assign a tip to several people prior to your gathering and ask them to come prepared to explain tip to entire group with images and/or props.

• Visit a local garden, assign a tip to each team (2-4 people), allow time for each team to find an example of tip in the garden, then meet with entire group and tour the garden while each team shares their tip.

• Assign each tip to a group and have them act it out, while the others have to guess which tip they are representing.

• Assign tips to everyone (it’s okay that several people have the same tip), then take turns drawing it on a large sheet of paper for others to guess.

Thanks Marie for the wonderful idea and best wishes at your plant trade day!