Lovely Leaves - Family Friendly Afternoon at Harcourt Arboretum

At the Harcourt Arboretum we kicked off our family friendly afternoons for August this Tuesday, 5th August from 1pm to 4pm, with Lovely Leaves and will continue to have family afternoons every Tuesday this month themed to parts of a plant (to find out more, please click here).

   

Our activities for Lovely Leaves encompassed use of leaves from around the Arboretum as well as paper leaves. Families were able to go on a leaf trail and collect their own leaves from the ground to make the crafts, or we had a variety of leaves available for them to use. Families had three activities they could take part in - leaf friends, leaf finger puppets, and leaf nametags.

All three activities were equally popular. Families had two staff members and two volunteers to help them make their crafts and it seemed that parents and grandparents were keen on making friends too!

“Good ideas and a help to grandparents!”

“Good craft ideas. Friendly and helpful staff. Thank you x”

 

Overall, despite the iffy weather, we had a decent turn out of families. Thanks to our newly built shelter we were able to shield the families and crafts from the occasional rain shower.

And, even though the crafts for Lovely Leaves are put away now we will have the leaf trail out all week (until Monday 11^th August) for any visitor to get a good peek at the variety of leaves we have in the Arboretum. My favourite is number 4, Cercidiphyllum japonicum, on our trail because the leaves have started to change colour and smell a bit like candyfloss!

 Our next family friendly afternoon is Brilliant Bark on Tuesday 12^th August.  See you then!

 

 Corie Edwards.