Benefits of teaching children gardening stressed

Teaching youngsters skills in rearing plants is credited with increasing their sense of responsibility, calming their behaviour and creating a better understanding of where their food comes from.

A poll by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) reveals that more than eight in 10 parents garden with their children.

But it also raises concerns that today’s parents may be outshone by their youngsters and their own parents because few of them were taught to garden at school.

Almost half of the parents questioned said their child knows more or the same amount about gardening as they do.

And four fifths of parents said their own parents know more or the same about gardening as they do.

The RHS warned that a lack of gardening instruction at school had left today’s generation of parents without proper horticultural knowledge.

Less than one per cent of parents were taught to garden by a school teacher, the RHS claimed, compared with 55 per cent of grandparents and 40 per cent of children.

Just 26 per cent of parents said they had a school garden when they were a child, while 58 per cent said their child now has access to a school garden, with 76 per cent of those revealing their youngster uses the facility.

Sue Biggs, director-general of the RHS, said: “These findings suggest that today’s parents, who attended school during the 1980s and 90s, missed out on a huge opportunity, especially as gardening dropped off the agenda.

“When children learn to garden it is a skill that stays with them for life, something they will use and fall back on as they grow up.

“This is evident from the grandparents we surveyed, among whom nearly 80 per cent say they like to garden, and more than a third of them grow their own fruit and vegetables.

“From the schools we work with we know they are desperate for more help from local parents and other adults to build and maintain school gardens.

“But with 65 per cent of parents admitting that their own parents (now grandparents) know more about gardening than they do, and nearly half believing their own children, aged 4-11, have equal or better horticultural knowledge than themselves, it would seem today’s parents are shy of volunteering their time probably due to a lack of knowledge.”

The RHS is urging adults to get gardening in October through the Get Your Grown-ups Growing (GYGG) initiative, which is open to all schools registered to the RHS Campaign for School Gardening.

Schools are being asked to hold a gardening event during the month, encouraging their parents and other adults to take part.

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