If you have children, I’m sure you know that they are more than interested in your gardening. Well, that is until they hit the teen years and then they are pretty much less than interested in anything that has to do with anything, but their social life. Anyway, while my oldest son was young, he would follow me around the garden and love to get dirty with me.

His favorite thing to do was look for worms in the garden and collect them all inside a large soda bottle. Not to mention, the one day when he decided the worms were hungry and fed them a bunch of ants.. it turned out to be a worm massacre. As my children got older, we developed an activity that I thought I would share with you readers.

Each year I’d let him pick the type of flower he wanted to grow. He would plant it and take care of it, with a little extra love from mom of course while he was still young. He always chose annuals, so we found a way to keep all of his flowers long after they have wilted. Once the flowers grew, he and I would choose the largest, healthiest flower from the bunch. We laid it down on wax paper, placed another piece of wax paper on top and I would use the iron to press the flower and preserve it forever.

Each year we’d do this same routine; it allowed us to bond and let him feel as if he was important to the garden as well. I continued the tradition with both my girls, and now they each have books filled with pressed flowers from over the years.