With the School Holidays in Sussex underway and the kids in need of entertaining, here are the top 3 outdoor things to do to keep them amused. The bonus being the living room stays tidy!
The activities have been inspired by Borde Hill Garden in West Sussex, who are running a Summer Holiday Quiz through to 9thSeptember 2012 with fantastic prizes to be won.
1. Make a bark rubbing
The colour and pattern of bark can help you identify a tree. Make a record of your own; grab some paper, wax crayons or chalk and find yourself a tree. Place the paper on the bark and rub the crayon or chalk lengthwise across the paper. Create a textured picture by rubbing a different coloured crayon or chalk across the same piece of paper held at a different angle each time.
2. Calculate the age of a tree
Locate a tree stump – there’s plenty in the woodland at Borde Hill Garden or in the Adventure Playground. You’ll see there are rings running around the inside. You can count the number of rings to work out the age of the tree. Remember that most trees produce two rings per year, a light ring in the Spring and a darker one in Summer. The oak tree on the South Lawn of Borde Hill House is approximately 200 years old!
3. Find out who's Champion
There are 82 Champion Trees in the grounds of Borde Hill, making this one of the largest UK private estate collections. The Tree Register of the British Isles has over 150,000 Champion Trees registered on it. Only the tallest or those with the widest girth make it on to this database, which aims to record and preserve rare, unusual and historically significant trees in the UK countryside. Let’s find the Champion in your group! With the Adventure Playground as the assault course, see who’s the quickest at balancing on the beams or sliding down the pole. And the winner is……!!!
To find out more about the Summer Holiday quiz (running daily to 9th September) and the prizes to be won, visit www.bordehill.co.uk/quiz. Or call 01444 450326.
