By Kate Quach

Among the leafy greenery of Golden Gate Park’s Botanical Garden, vibrant sunflowers burst with color year-round. Sprawling with painted petals across a mural, the flowers’ yellow rays attract curious, young eyes.

As their gazes continue to explore, they meet colorful chalk lettering that reads, “Welcome to the Children’s Garden.” For budding youth, the Garden’s Bean Sprout Family Days provides an opportunity for hands-on environmental enrichment and eco-conscious awareness.

On a Tuesday morning, families arrived hand-in-hand, eager to explore the event’s activities, which are available to the public during Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Saturday afternoons. An archway framed the entrance to the garden while little bootprints stamped their way through the dirt.

Children scampered toward the Mud Kitchen, grinning as they romped in soil and earthy textures. Gardening spaces pocketed within the area invited toddlers to gain new interactions in natural environments. In the Kitchen Garden, thickets of blueberry bushes and patches of potatoes were rummaged through by hands hoping to harvest produce for their overflowing buckets. A stroll away, the Sensory Garden offered a peaceful area for children to engage with different plant species through watering and observation.

In a nearby clearing, tree branches stimulated creative minds to construct forts imagined into castles and secret bases. A picnic table filled with painting supplies and paper motivated children to take inspiration from the sights around them.

“When the pandemic hit, we understood that families still needed to get outside, so we were able to run the program through the pandemic and give access to a green space for families to be able to explore and connect to nature,” said Nichole Davis, education coordinator for Bean Sprouts Days. “This is everyone’s backyard.”

While the event brought families together for years well before 2020, Davis especially noticed the importance of an outside space for children and community during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Davis also found that the garden’s ability to provide a space for education and leadership stood steadfast through the seasons. In the fall, winter and spring, elementary school students on field trips to the Children’s Garden learn about the process of plant growth and harvesting, along with wildlife and climate. The education coordinator recognized that community bonding stemmed from “being able to bring work as a team with getting garden projects done and connecting with others as a whole.”

This past summer, young adult interns searched for places to nurture environmental knowledge, with one group establishing the Sensory Garden. On Family Days, younger children practice their fine motor skills as they dig for roots and paint with watercolors.

Both bundled in puffy winter jackets, Arjun and his caretaker, Merry Durung, crunched through leaves on the ground. As they breathe in the fresh air, Durung appreciated the activities in which Arjun involved himself.

“He told me some new things that he got to do today that he normally wouldn’t get to do at home,” she said.

As they practiced walking, they enjoyed the natural scenery while building a closer bond with one another. Durung viewed the garden as an open-air classroom in which she could teach Arjun about the culture of Nepal. “We spend a lot of time here, so I’m teaching him my own language too. Arjun is not Nepali, but he knows all the Nepali language.”

As Arjun took steps toward the berry bushes, he waved towards his friend Mia, who collected flowers beside her older cousins and grandmother, Diana Lee. Lee, knowing her 20-month-old granddaughter’s love for the outdoors, brought her family to the garden with intentions to cultivate their connection with the flora and fauna.

“Family Day contributes to her experiences in terms of texture and taste and color and sight,” Lee said. “Everything around her is just stimulating to her. She can play with dirt safely, she can pick plants. They give you new experiences to just be and to enjoy what life has available.”

While unearthing potatoes to tuck into her pail, Mia uncovered the nutritional importance of vegetables in her daily diet. According to the National Library of Medicine, garden-based activities are “most effective at improving nutrition-related outcomes for children” ages 6 and younger. Lee agreed, smiling with affection as Mia stretched out her hand towards a bouquet of brightly colored wildflowers that they hoped to bring home with them.

“This garden enables her to engage all her senses,” Lee said.

Grasping a paintbrush, children gathered around a wooden table and dipped into pans of color. After swashing paint into images of rainbows, plants and blue skies, the pages were clipped to a clothesline strewn across tree limbs. Sue Fandel created the watercolor activity in the Children’s Garden for youth to embrace the artistry flowing from their creativity and onto the page.

“Their focus is on creation, and they are not critical of themselves. It’s extra special because then they can take it home to their mom or dad, so it builds self confidence in them,” Fandel added.

As a former children’s guide at the park, Fandel recognized the impact that interactions with nature had upon a growing child. Watercolor painting served as an opportunity for a reflection on the foliage thriving around them.

“When they’re looking at nature, they see nature more fully,” she said. “That naturally will lead to protecting the wonders of nature as they watch the plants grow through this summer and then get harvested in the fall.”

The pages of art fluttered in the breeze as the young visitors of the garden created more landscapes of their own.

More children passed through the archway finding home in the garden as it soon transformed into a familiar backyard. Conservators of the area hoped to continue organizing activities that kept the youths’ curiosity for the planet evergreen.

“It’s a very joyful experience for them,” Fandel said. “We’re surrounded by the beauty of nature.”