Hello Friends –

Long summer days give us a chance to linger longer in our gardens. We've been loving this warm, mild weather and we hope you have, too.

Bench by Reynolds-Sebastiani: scroll down for more inspiration.

Next Generation of Green Thumbs

Helping the young people in your life connect with the natural world is a joyful experience. For many of us, memories of nature are some of the most poignant of our young lives. Our grandmother's garden, our camping trips, climbing trees, adventures in the empty lot on our block...these experiences helped us to develop a sense of connectedness to nature that we've carried with us for the rest of our lives. Here at the store, our young visitors are some of our favorites. We hope that they'll remember their visits when they are grown and that we'll inspire a generation of gardeners. Below, we've collected some ideas for sharing experiences of nature with children, indoors or out, whether you have a garden or not. Right: Iris, daughter of The Cutting Garden designer Susie Nadler, beams from a garden pot.

Gardening project with kids – even if you don't have a garden

My son Greyson loves our Tillandsia garden! The steel Thigmotrope Satellites used to create our vertical tillandsia garden screw right into the wall.

My son takes the plants down to water them (okay, yes, I do let him stand on the bedside table to do it) and puts them back when they've had a drink. And he loves to select new plants to add to our collection every now and then.

Learning to name what you see

Working with kids on naming and identifying what they see in the natural world around them is great for developing their head for science, and really fun for adults and kids to do together. Greyson and I carry these laminated Pocket Naturalist Guides with us when we hike and attempt to identify the butterflies, bugs, and birds we see around us. Kids as young as three enjoy this activity.

Get tooled up

These real garden tools are sized for kids and let them do real work and have fun tending the garden. Even the youngest gardeners love watering plants with this Water Logged Watering Can.

Our short list of plants that kids love to grow

This hardy little succulent, Sempervivum arachnoideum, is covered in fine hairs that look & feel like tiny, soft spider webs, and makes little babies that can be separated to grow on their own.

Clockwise from upper left: Fuzzy lamb's ear is fun to touch and hard to kill; heirloom strawberries provide yummy fruit to pick; yarrow attracts butterflies with its zillions of pretty flowers; mint is fun to smell, eat, and impossible to kill.

Greyson's favorite hat

Gotta keep 'em out of the sun, right? We sell this hat here at the store and it sure does the trick. It's as rough-and-tumble as my kid Greyson.

Garden Inspiration from Reynolds-Sebastiani Design

We're so pleased to share a garden by our friends at Reynolds-Sebastiani. Long-time customers will remember Christopher Reynolds from our Guerrero Street Gardens days. He and Alysia Sebastiani have meticulously crafted this Castro District garden on a slope with established trees and southerly views. We love the dry-stack stonework and exotic plant palette, as well as the magical gathering spots.

Flying Bicycle: a Collaboration with Cyclecide

It's a flying bicycle – overtaken by plants! We have some pretty talented neighbors here in the Bayview: This piece was created by our talented next-door neighbor Jarico Reesce, founder of Cyclecide, and planted by Jim Kumiega, display genius here at the nursery.

Join Us on Facebook and Twitter

It's just like neighbors chatting about their gardens over the fence, but digitally. Please join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Come and see us.

– Flora and everyone at Flora Grubb Gardens