Flower Pounding at the Children's Garden

Phil-on-the-corner is a Master Gardener who runs a Children's Garden in the neighborhood every summer. He wants to instill a love of gardening (along with the skills to do it) in kids. Every week, all summer, they do a different activity related to the garden from planting to weeding to harvesting to to cooking their bounty to making bird houses, scarecrows, or rain barrels. I offered to lead a flower pounding activity this month.

We brought the following :
Prepared fabric (pre-soaked in a solution of water with soda ash and alum)
-Cut into 10-inch squares
Flowers and crab apples
Hammers
Clear Packing Tape
Boards to pound on


People went right to work choosing and laying out their flower petals.
We taped them down with clear packing tape (which makes it easier to see what you need to pound), and people started hammering.



Once the color is transferred from the flower to the fabric, the tape (with spent flowers) can be peeled off, leaving the flower-pounded fabric. Here are some of the results from this night's work :


A few people decided to spell out names : Ginger + Phil (above)

Addison (below)




Here's Phil, our Master Gardener with his work of art.


Here's Jenny with one of her pieces.


CL did this one. Some of his petals made a perfect transfer!



Here are some pictures from when Oliver and I tried Flower Pounding a few years ago :

Laying out the flowers.


Pound-Pound-Pound


Really--even a kid can do it!