Our Montessori Sensory Garden provides a safe, enticing space for our children to develop practical life skills in an environment that is ever-changing and evolving. This child-friendly sensory garden encourages practical life skills like responsibility, patience, and observation. Our twins work alongside us, learning how to tend to care for a variety of plants, and how we must maintain the property as the seasons require. As they grow, they apply their own creativity to shape the space in their interests, making it a true reflection of our shared care and creativity. As our children explore the sensory garden, they activate all their senses—touch, smell, taste, and sight—through meaningful experiences rooted in nature.
What Children Learn in a Montessori Sensory Garden
In a Montessori sensory garden, children learn valuable life skills by observing the full cycle of growth—from planting seeds to harvesting fruits and vegetables. This hands-on experience teaches consistency, patience, and responsibility, helping children understand that growth takes time and care. They also learn to navigate disappointment when plants don’t thrive, building resilience and adaptability in the face of changing conditions. Gardening supports both fine and gross motor skill development: children carefully pluck petals, gently tend to seedlings, and carry full watering cans with growing coordination. As they move through the garden, they engage their senses and build a deep connection with nature—a natural, restorative classroom right outside the door.
Tactile Gardening for Little Hands
Sensory gardening should be a tactile experience. Adventurous little children should be made comfortable to touch (and occasionally pluck) all the parts of the plants as they learn to tend to their garden. We selected plants hardy enough to endure, and even ones that benefit from being handled.
Cutting back thyme and mint will encourage new growth. Flowers, such as lavender, beebalm, marigolds, and coneflowers must be deadheaded (blooms removed) for new blooms to take their place. My boys particularly enjoyed popping off and squishing the blooms of pretty flowers, rolling the silky petals between their fingers. Succulents like hens and chicks are firm and slightly prickly, offering a distinct contrast to softer foliage.
Touch isn’t limited to plants—inorganic textures enrich the sensory experience too. Smooth plastic pots, rough terracotta planters warmed by the sun, and edging materials like stones, bricks, branches, straw, and sand all create interesting tactile opportunities. Add bark chips or river rocks between garden beds for little feet to explore. If space is tight, dress your planted pots with mulch, colored stones, or gravel for visual interest. Avoid using pesticides or fertilizers so children are safe to touch with bare skin.
Building Scent Memories
I still remember the grassy, slightly astringent smell of the currant bushes in my grandmother’s garden. On hot summer days, I’d roll the firm berries between my fingers, trying to pinch off the woody calyx with my thumbnail.. The scent would stain my fingers. For many of us, childhood scents connect us deeply to nature and companionship.
We can invest in our children’s early scent memories by creating a positive association from their first exposure to our sensory gardens. Get down to your children’s level and investigate what you can smell together. Ask them to describe.Does the tomato plant smell sweet? Is it strong or subtle? Does it smell like the fruit itself? Our boys mostly sniffed with curiosity, but these moments were a perfect opportunity to introduce new descriptive language and sensory awareness.
Some plants require you to pick petals or scrunch leaves to release their scent, and inviting touch.Plant flowers with subtle smells that require you to stick your nose into the petals, such as violets. Don’t clump too many aromatic plants in one area, as the confusion of different scents will be overwhelming. Space-scented plants at intervals around your garden. Introduce fresh mulches, wood shavings, grass clippings, etc. which may have new scents.
Taste Exploration in the Sensory Garden
Part of encouraging free movement and exploration is providing a prepared space (in this case, the garden) where children are safe to roam independently. Everything in our back garden is safe to eat We’ve chosen only edible or non-toxic perennials, herbs, vegetables, and berry bushes, ensuring the entire space is child-friendly and safe for little explorers.As our space is primarily stone and concrete, we rely heavily on containers and raised bed growing.
We have mostly selected fruits and vegetables that can be eaten right off the plant: thornless blackberries and raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherry tomatoes, leafy lettuce, green beans, and a variety of herbs.
Other crops like watermelon, squash, garlic, and leeks help children make connections with the complete gardening cycle—from planting and nurturing to harvesting, preparing, cooking, and even composting what’s left behind. This holistic process offers children a hands-on understanding of food systems, sustainability, and the rewards of nurturing life from seed to table
Visual Play in the Sensory Garden
Our sensory garden is a rainbow of visible textures, colors, shapes, and sizes. By mixing and matching plants with distinct visual traits, we avoid creating a uniform, flat green space. While flowers naturally bring color, foliage can also add visual richness—leaves may be blue, red, green, yellow, purple, brown, or even silvery.
Over time, your child will begin to recognize subtle differences between similar-looking plants. With repeated exposure, even look-alikes like mint and lemon balm, parsley and cilantro, or oregano and marjoram become easy to tell apart. This encourages visual observation and plant identification, a skill that’s fading as we rely more on apps than on experience.
Help your little botanist by pointing out and naming plants, even weeds, as you explore your garden, neighborhood, or local park. Visual learning happens everywhere.
Simple Montessori-Inspired Visual Activity:
Track growth visually: Place a stake or bamboo pole next to tall-growing vegetables like tomatoes or pole beans. Let your little ones mark growth progress every few days
Peak Under The Soil: Just take any clear food-grade plastic container, in our case protein powder, and poke drainage holes in the bottom. Have your little ones help fill the container with potting soil, and plant your seeds up against the container’s edge for best viewing. Are the roots fine and wispy? Shallow or deep? Is any food growing under the soil? See how the root system can vary by planting different types of plants.
Winter Sowing for a Montessori Sensory Garden
With 3 children under 2 years old, I simply didn’t have the time or the space for starting seeds indoor this year. Instead of growing seeds indoors under grow lights, we repurpose clear plastic containers (water jugs, tomato boxes, totes) into mini outdoor greenhouses. They are simply left outdoors, covered in snow in a partly sunny area. The seedlings sprout already hardened off and ready for transplanting. The results were fantastic! No daily watering or start up costs. My twins were very curious whenever we played outback, and loved peeking inside to spot signs of life. For those short on time, space, or resources, which most families of multiples are, I highly recommend trying winter sowing over traditional indoor growing.
Seed Libraries: Since money was tight, I looked into supplementing our supply from previous years with options from a local seed library. Seed Libraries offer free seeds to “check out” and plant in their own gardens. This is a much more exciting and educational seed-hunting expedition for your little ones than just ordering online. Chances are, the seeds will be zone-appropriate, native, and have additional information relevant to your city to give you the best shot of a bountiful harvest. You can pay it forward by harvesting seeds to “return” come fall. A great excuse for a return trip to the library. A small but meaningful opportunity for your little one to connect how an act of giving benefits their community.
