Ann Mitchell

Curiosity

Stop by an area with wildflowers.  Even better walk through an area with wildflowers.  Check out all the pollinators you see.  (Remember to bring an EpiPen, if you or your child have severe allergic reactions to bee stings.)  My question is do you want to be a (wildflower, pollinator, conservationist, fill in the blank that will excite your child) guerrilla?  They may ask what a wildflower guerrilla is.  Curiosity sparked, check.  You can share with them some of the facts in the notes section, just pick what you think they may find interesting.  Make sure you include that you guys are going to make seed bombs and helping the pollinators.

Pause, Notice, and Observe

With all the supply set out on a protected surface (this is messy) have them touch everything.  Ask what they see, feel, smell, hear, and taste.  You may have to ask leading questions to get them to dive in, is the clay smooth or bumpy, do all the seeds look alike, what does the soil smell like, or maybe does the clay have a taste?  You can always leave out a sense if it just doesn’t work, like taste maybe pushing their adventurous nature.  I had pictures of the flowers for the seeds we used.  Then I had to look up each flower so we could identify each seed, had not planned on that.  Always be prepared for your child to throw a curve ball and be ready to adjust. 

Connect to People and Surroundings

There are several ways you can go with this.  Some of the information in notes can be used to help you share with your child how far reaching this idea spreading wildflowers is around the US and that the idea of seed bombs was borrowed from a famous Japanese conservationist.  A visit to a local garden might help introduce you and your child to local gardeners, conservationist, master gardeners, and why it is so important to spread seeds appropriate for your area.  We met a group of master gardeners at a local garden they tend.  They shared which native flowers would do well in our seed bombs.  You can enlist your child’s friends to help spread the seed bombs when they are ready.

Create

On a protected surface, we did this outside, assemble the supplies.  I like the small, quarter size sphere so I had marble, ping pong ball and a melon scooper to help keep our mind on the size.  Charlie got right to making his seed bombs.  He scooped clay and added compost and worked it all together with his fingers.  Once it felt like it would stay together, he made an indent and added a pinch of our seed mix, then rolling in between his palms.  While we were doing this, we added a special blessing to the seeds, telling them to grow and share their flowers with world.  Finally, he dipped each ball in the bowl of water and rolled in the compost.  He set each on a tray to dry overnight.  We made them and 2 days later bombed our community trails.  We live in TX and fall to early winter is the best time to sow wildflowers.  It is different in different area, for the best results look up the best time for your geographic area.

 Share

The act of seed bombing is sharing.  We also shared the bombs with some friends to help in the bombing.  It was great fun to see how far they could throw and who could find what they thought would be the best place for the flowers to grow.  Charlie shared the process he used to make the bombs and why it is so important with his fellow wildflower guerrillas.

Notes:

 There is no question that “native” wildflowers are important to our planet.  Joel Sartore the photographer of the Photo Ark, said “planting native wildflowers saves the insects that we all depend on to keep the earth’s ecosystems in balance.  Without them there is no us.”

 There are articles all over on wildflowers’ importance. I like this one from National Geographic,

“Blooming wildflowers provide a burst of color, attracting pollinators such as bees and butterflies, which are responsible for one in every three bites of food we eat,”

 This method of spreading seeds is credited to Masanobu Fukuoka.  He is famous for his natural farming and ideas on re-vegetation of lands.  Look him up for more info.  Several videos of him are fun to watch.

Guerrilla Gardening has popped up in several of my searches and the “guerrilla” part was very interesting to my grandson.

https://www.guerrillagardening.org/ggseedbombs.html

There is a guy in Scotland, Darren Wilson, making seed bombs that look like grenades.  https://kabloom.co.uk/about/

This is a link to a video about using paper vs clay to make your seed bombs.  I like this for a little older child to explore some different types of paper and recycling paper. This is from Art’s Nursery.   https://www.youtube.com/shorts/U9WznruPpPQ

Where to get native wildflower seeds:

Wildseedfarms.com

Edenbrothers.com

https://www.vermontwildflowerfarm.com/wildflower-seed-wildflower-mixes-by-region.html