Building a miniature Resurrection Garden may seem like a favorite Easter project for a girl – miniature plants, little flowers, and artistic arrangement. However, I can testify to the fact that the dirt, sticks, stones, and hands-on-construction of the garden holds just as much fascination for my boy tribe.
Boys and spray bottles are a perfect way to give love to the garden. Please do not die on me due to the overwatering, dear succulents. The boys look forward to this project every year and each time, I am amazed at how much they both forgot and remembered from last year. The questions concerning why someone would want to put Jesus on the cross, how Jesus rose from the dead, and why they didn’t like Jesus are numerous and frequent. My first-born gets quiet and sad as he reflects on what he remembers from previous explanations. The answering and processing of the questions is just as good for my heart as it is for theirs. I am grateful for this tangible, visible reminder.
Budget Friendly
The only items that we bought specifically for our garden were several succulents. Each boy picks one succulent. A local greenhouse, Glick’s Greenhouse, has a large assortment of succulents priced at $1 each. Each boy chooses one to purchase (I chose one for the boy in school that day), and we used them for the Resurrection Garden along with several succulents and pathos starts that I already had around our home.
This year, I had potting soil on hand.
Total cost: $4
Use What You Have
This project is one you can most likely do without needing to leave your house as long as you are willing to exercise your creativity and look at the items that you already have with fresh eyes. You will need the following items:
- A container. Traditionally, people have planted their Resurrection Gardens in plant trays. But you can use any type of container – remember, your garden only needs to remain alive from now until Easter and then you can transplant as needed. My sister-in-law used a beautiful metal container that she normally keeps her paper supplies in. One year, I used a wooden box that Kevin picked out of the junk in a shed at a rental property. I was going to use a plastic plant tray to line the wooden box but since it didn’t fit the best, I decided to simply line it with a brown cloth and make sure my son only waters with a spray bottle. Depending on your container, you may need a liner in order to keep the moisture from rotting or rusting your container. One year, I did purchase a planter with a tray for a different plant project. Now, when Lent rolls around, I find that planter tray and we use that to make our Easter garden. It is a bit larger than I would prefer, but it works! 😉
- Dirt. We used potting soil that we had found another year.
- Plants. I used a variety of succulents from Glick’s Greenhouse as well as added in several of my own potted succulents that I will return back to their pots after Easter. While succulents are beautiful, they do not have to be used. You really could use any small house plant. My sister-in-law’s family even dug a small daffodil out of their back yard to add to their container. Early wild flowers/weeds can also be dug up and added to beautify the small garden. My son just arrived home from school the other day with a handful of bluish-flowered weeds that we added to our garden.
- Sticks and Stones. Collecting the sticks and stones for the walkway and crosses is always my boys’ favorite part of the activity. Wash and rinse the stones. Rub the sticks dry before using a hot glue gun and twine to form the crosses. Again, you may need to exercise your creativity to attach the crossbeams onto your crosses if you do not have a hot glue gun – Sticky tack? Super glue? Chewing gum?
- Small circular container and large stone. The first year, we used a small flower pot for our tomb, and we hunted for the perfect stone. After the grandparents made a trip to Israel, they brought back a sepulcher kit for each family to put together with their children. We pull this out along with our “Jesus” that a friend gifted as the culminating touches to our garden.
- Moss. While this is not a necessity for the garden, I think it adds the illusion of a grassy hill for the crosses.
Do It Together
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Certainly, my favorite part of this project was visiting the greenhouse and selecting the succulents. However, simply taking the time to slow down and using my creativity to form a garden with my boys felt life-giving as well. They take great pride in the garden and thoroughly enjoyed positioning the plants, dumping the dirt, and finding the sticks and stones. It may or may not be dug in and played with on a more regular basis than I care for. I love hearing them recite and “act out” their Bible Memory passage of Matthew 28:1-7 using the garden.
Adding additional steps to the process such as sorting the stones for the perfect ones, washing them clean, and finding the strongest sticks for the crosses is just as much fun for the children, if not more than the actual completion of the project. Our garden is a project that evolves over the week – earlier this week, we added the moss, on Monday some flowers were added, and we have yet to get a good walkway for our garden and need to visit a pebbled area to collect some stones.
Allow It to Be Their Responsability
The boys have a spray bottle filled with water that is stored under the bathroom sink. It is their job to fill the bottle,, climb onto a stool, spend long minutes watering, and then replace the spray bottle under the sink before continuing with the rest of the day. It is their project, and they takes great pleasure in keeping it maintained (i.e. keeping the walkway arranged just so and the cleaning the dirt off the stones) and watered.
If you decided to complete this project or a similar one with your child, we would love to see your finished garden. And, if you have any other ideas on how to make this Easter memorable for your little ones, let me know!