Little Green Thumbs

Garden at Discovery Creek grows young minds along with flora and fauna.

By Scott Sowers

Photograph courtesy of Discovery Creek

A living laboratory, the Discovery Creek Children’s Garden at Glen Echo Park employs Mother Nature as a teacher for young students of the environment.

One of Discovery Creek’s four environmental education centers, the garden was first cultivated in partnership with Merrifield Garden Center in 2000. Perennials, annuals, trees and shrubs thrive under the care of little green thumbs in the old paddock area next to the Stable at Glen Echo Park. The garden offers much more than plants. “We mixed in fun things for kids to explore,” says Annie Hanson, director of education.

The terrain is varied, featuring a hill that, depending on the season, mimics either a high-altitude bluff capped by alpine species or a swell smothered to obscurity by a tangle of autumnal vines bearing gourds and pumpkins. More than a mere mound of earth, the knoll is bisected by a subterranean tunnel that tempts tots to explore.

After scaling the rise and scrambling through the burrow, children inevitably expend more energy in what’s possibly the largest sandpit this side of Bethany Beach. The crawlway is big enough for a whole class to jump in, roll around, and dig.

Other not-to-be-missed garden attractions include a triumvirate of cascading ponds where pint-sized visitors search out snails, find frogs and ponder the enigmatic life cycle of mayflies. Water, its mysterious depths fascinating to young and old, is a magnet for kids.

Stocked with scented herbs and plants, a sensory garden within the garden invites curious noses, eyes and fingers. The Heron’s Nest tree house enables youngsters to spy natural wonders from a bird’s-eye perspective.

The garden, used for everything from bug hunts to science safaris, epitomizes an open classroom. Programs, in the guise of fun and games, teach everything from photosynthesis to the physics of flight.

The “Seed to Soup” program for schools allows children to learn that food comes not from the supermarket in shrink-wrapped Styrofoam, but from soil that they till, seed, weed, and water. In reward for their efforts, the youngsters get to harvest and eat what they’ve grown.

To children, the garden and its surroundings are places to play. But the Discovery Creek educators know that they’re cultivating gifts from the earth far greater than flowers.

Editor’s Note: For a program schedule or to make reservations for weekday programs, call 202-337-5111 or visit DiscoveryCreek.org.