Kids Go Gardening - wind chimes

Lie in the garden on a breezy spring day and close your eyes. Can you hear the birds? Can you hear the wind as it moves through the leaves?

How about adding some music to your garden with hanging wind chimes? Get creative and design your own! Kacy found tiny terracotta pots at the garden centre to make her bell wind chimes. They make a lovely tinkling sound.

Bell wind chimes

You will need

• 8 little terracotta pots
• A hanger (Kacy found a round rack at the op shop. You could also use a piece of driftwood or any op shop find)
• Large beads (Kacy found some old necklaces)
• Colourful string (e.g. crochet cotton) to fit through the beads.
• Paint (Kacy used test pots of house paint)

1. Paint your pots and leave them to dry (or you could leave them ‘au naturel’).
2. Cut strings about a metre long.
3. Thread each string through the beads and pots, starting at the bottom with a large bead. Make sure that a large bead sits near the bottom of each pot so that it can bang against the side. To hold each pot in place you need a knot or a bead inside the pot (which is bigger than the pot’s hole). Kacy threaded four strings with 2 pots (and 8 beads) each.
4. Tie your finished strings to your hanger at different lengths.

Windflower!!
Here’s a beautiful flower that moves with the breeze, and uses the wind’s help to scatters its seeds. Cosmos are easy to grow from seed sown straight into the garden in spring. Or start some in trays of Yates Black Magic.

Did you know?

• Wind is energy – we can turn it into electricity.
• New Zealand is a windy place because it is closely surrounded by sea.
• Some plants use wind to spread their seeds.
• Some plants need wind for pollination. Unlike plants pollinated by birds or insects, they have smaller flowers with no scent or nectar, but gazillions of tiny pollen grains (which make us sneeze!) Their flower parts are designed to catch pollen floating past in the breeze.
• Most plants, especially young seedlings, need shelter from strong wind.

 

Look for these products, tips and advice at a Go Gardening Store near you.

What you will need

Decorate your pots

Thread the strings

Cosmos