Planting sunflowers is a great way to celebrate summer, help our bees and learn about the life cycle of plants. You can also have fun making sunflower-related artworks and useful tools out of recycled objects – great for the creative mind, the environment and the garden!
Popsicle sticks can be used to make seed markers – these markers are decorated with pens and coloured pencils. Pospsicle markers are great to use when you first plant your seeds, while you’re waiting for them to germinate.
Recycled plastic milk bottles make fantastic watering cans for little people. You can make them out of 1 litre, 2 litre or even 3 litre bottles, it all depends on how heavy you’d like your watering can to be when filled with water.
To turn a milk bottle into a watering can, wash the bottle out well and then use a hammer and nail to pierce holes in the plastic lid. Then tie a piece of string to the lid and the handle of the bottle, so that the lid won’t get lost.
These sorts of watering cans are easy to carry around and are super handy for all the watering that sunflowers need in the warmer summer months.
At Epuni School we use painted tins to store lots of different types of seed, including sunflower seeds. Formula tins are really useful as they come with lids. We use bright and cheerful colours when decorating tins, and these ones were painted using Resene testerpots.
We’d love to hear of other creative sunflower projects – so please share them by by either commenting below, or emailing us!
Project Sunshine Aotearoa 