An Indoor Plant Activity For The Winter

An indoor plant activity is a wonderful way to get rid of some of those harsh and dreary cold days during the winter months. This project can be done at school, non profit club, or a family activity. It can also make a great holiday gift as well.

The pictures below are of a home activity, but I would like to give teachers and students some suggestions for doing a school project or making a holiday gift. Plan to make this a theme base activity. It can be geared toward the winter months, generic holiday season, or a specific area of science or art. Here is the first picture so you can get an overview.

Overview

In a class setting this could be done as a group project. You can downscale this to an individual assignment and do one plant per student. Create a special area where students can bring a plant in or grow your own plants from seeds. A school or home article explains the steps of an indoor project for growing seeds. You can scale down the size of each plant to a plug size or a small pot for each student. Think about different ways you can incorporate plants, outdoor features such as small rocks and branches of live evergreens in a lesson plan. Even in harsh climates, you can get live branches. The pine branches and pine cones can add a nice touch. Teaching children about putting together a live plant with other natural outdoor features is a great way to get youth involved in the environment.

If you are doing this as a family project, there many ways you can set up your area indoors. Usually the best area is near a window. If this is not feasible, you can still have an inside plant area. Your selection will contain more shade plants. My winter accent area will vary from year to year. I will arrange my inside plants with plants that I have had outside all spring, summer and fall. Ornamental pepper plants, and other perennials are great to dig up from the garden and bring inside for the colder months. Many of the ornamental pepper plants are considered annuals. I will put them outside during the warmer months and bring them in over the winter and they now become perennials. Due to the drought conditions in our area, the Salvia didn't do well outdoors. I took it out of the ground this fall as it was had been struggling all summer with no growth at all. There are two in a pot now and starting to revitalize.

This little winter delight can be any size and anywhere from three, five or seven or more plants. You can use a single piece of furniture, multi tier or a few different small pieces. Get a little creative and add your own personal touch to it. I like to add some natural outdoor features to this small area. I took a glass end table. The goal was to take seven of my plants and place them around in no set pattern.

Seven Plants

Besides adding pine branches, I placed some outdoor small rocks around.

Decorative Rocks

Two of the plants are cactus that are inside year around. I grew these from seeds. Cactus has a very slow germination process and the two are about eight years old. The other five plants were in different gardens this year and potted them in the fall. There is Lemon Balm on the front right, cut back Parsley on the front left, Cayenne Pepper on the back right, and one of the Salvia in the back middle. The other one is an ornamental purple pepper plant on the left back is one I did from seed.

Frog And Hummingbird

The small decorative frog adds the outdoor feel as well as the tiny hummingbird. The final step was to add some small decorative white lights to accent different features.

Accents With Lights

You can use any type of plants, features, and accents for a fun and learning indoor activity. This is a great project to educate any age and will add a nice and warm indoor touch throughout the cold winter months.