Dinosaur garden: make one with your kids!

TYRE-ANNOSAURUS GARDEN

Make your very own prehistoric landscape in a cleverly decorated old tyre, recreated from garden crafts for children.

Dawn Isaac's Garden Crafts for Children has 35 fun projects for children to sow, grow and make. Here's the perfect project for your budding palaeontologist to indulge his or her love of all things dinosaur. Plus it's a great way to get the kids into gardening, or at least keeping them busy while you get the real work done! If your children are more interested in things girlie turn the tyre into a fairy dell, painting it pink and sparkly.

You will need:

• old car tyre
  
• orange acrylic paint
• paint dish
  
• small paint roller or piece of sponge
  
• old potting-mix bag
  
• scissors
  
• garden fork
  
• potting mix
  
• 2-3 fern plants or other small foliage plants
  
• watering can
  
• 2-3 large rocks or pebbles
  
• Moss
  
• selection of small plastic dinosaurs
  
• small paintbrush
  
  

How to make:

1. Give your tyre a good wash with some warm, soapy water and allow to dry. Put some orange acrylic paint in the paint dish and use the paint roller or small piece of sponge to apply it around the outside of the tyre. You will need to add a few coats to build up the colour, allowing the paint to dry in between each coat.

2. Find a nice shady spot for your old tyre. Take an old potting-mix bag and cut out a section that is large enough to cover the base of the tyre and a little way up the side.

3. Place the section of potting-mix bag in the bottom of the tyre and puncture some holds in it to allow water to drain slowly from the tyre.

4. Fill the tyre with some potting mix, making sure that you push it right into the inside ring of the tyre as well as the centre. When your tyre is half full, take the plants carefully out of their pots and place them around until you are happy with the layout.

5. Fill the remaining space in the tyre with some more potting mix, firming it down as you go, then water the plants.

6. Arrange the rocks or pebbles in your prehistoric world, cover any areas of potting mix that are showing with moss and introduce your dinosaurs to their new home. Use the small paintbrush to add some rivers of orange volcanic larva to one of the stones.

Extract from Garden Crafts for Children, by Dawn Isaac. Photos by Emma Mitchell and Martin Norris, RRP$39.99. Published by CICO Books. Distributed by Bookreps.co.nz