Top 10 gardening books for children

Introducing children to gardening, plants and nature is a wonderful way to nurture their curiosity and instil a lifelong love for nature and the environment. Our pick of the best RHS gardening books for children aims to make learning educational and fun. From vibrant picture books that explore the world of trees to interactive experiments that turn gardening into a hands-on adventure with the family, these titles cater to various age groups and skill levels.

Get ready to dig in and cultivate a love for nature and plants with this top selection of RHS children’s gardening books.

1) RHS How Does a Frog Grow?

With friendly, read-aloud text, beautiful photos and illustrations, and surprise flaps, the easy-to-follow pages explain the complete life cycle of a frog to young children.

Young children can discover frogs in a garden – hiding under leaves, sitting on lily pads, and jumping into ponds with a plop. Children can learn how a frog grows: one mummy frog lays her eggs in frogspawn, and then close-up photos show the tadpoles hatching, growing legs, their tails shrivelling up, and a little froglet becoming a frog.

The book explains how frogs are helpful to gardens, how to make safe places for them and what plants they like. You’ll also learn the differences between frogs and toads and be introduced to a variety of frogs from around the world – from Wallace’s flying frog of Southeast Asia and South America’s dyeing poison dart frog, to the European agile frog, Australia’s ornate burrowing frog and the banded bullfrog, found in Asian countries, including China and India.

2) RHS Let’s Get Gardening

Learn to grow your own vegetables and herbs, attract butterflies and bees and be a green gardener with lots of recycling tips. Packed full of garden activities, this book helps children learn at home, as they find out about conservation, recycling and sustainability in simple, practical and hands-on ways. They will build a mini nature reserve, turn old wellies into plant pots, grow fruit and vegetables that they can really eat, plant a bee-friendly space, create a ladybird sanctuary and much more. Help nature with every activity and discover the joys of growing plants from seeds.

3) RHS Pocket Book of Garden Experiments

By Helen Pilcher

This book has 80 experiments for the whole family to discover and enjoy with easy-to-follow instructions for activities to stretch the imagination and bring out your inner scientist. Examples include making an ecosystem in a jar, finding out why leaves change colour, turning potatoes into slime, how to calculate the heights of trees and how to make a sound map of your garden. Each experiment takes inspiration from the natural world and the fascinating things that live in it.

4) RHS The Magic and Mystery of Trees

By Jen Green and Claire McElfatrick

From the highest branch and leaf down to the complex ‘wood wide web’ of roots, it's no wonder every part of a tree plays an important role in its own growth and the habitat of the whole forest or woodland.

Did you know that trees can communicate with each other and warn each other of predators? Or that they can record the past, and anticipate the future to ensure their survival? Dive deep into the pages of this nature book for kids to discover exactly how trees nurture their networks, and explore extraordinary trees from all around the world.

This book supports KS1 and KS2 curriculum within science and geography subjects. It includes fun practical activities such as planting your own tree and measuring a tree’s age. It covers everything from reproduction to rainforests, the wood wide web to deforestation and its effects.

5) RHS Ultimate Sticker Book Garden Pond

From all kinds of pond-living plants, to goldfish and beetles that slurp up small underwater creatures, inside you’ll find a wonderful world of ponds waiting to be discovered. Beautiful lilies, irises, pondweeds, koi carp, damselflies, snails, beetles and more adorn every page.

This informative sticker book encourages children's interest in nature. The brilliant facts accompanied by simple, fun activities such as matching the 250 stickers to picture shapes, follow-the-trail, and a quiz make the content perfect for curious young minds. Children are challenged to find the correct stickers to fill in the blanks in images on the pages, and they are stimulated to get creative and design their own garden pond with stickers.

The combination of engaging activities and easy-to-understand information given in small snippets allows children to learn as they play, and they will soon want to go out, explore garden ponds and the life around them.

6) RHS Ultimate Sticker Book Garden Bugs

Bring the garden indoors for kids with this creepy crawlies sticker book packed with bugs and insects. Find out what garden bugs such as caterpillars, worms, and woodlice do to help plants grow. Discover a world of predators, scavengers, and plant-eaters right outside your back door. Learn your ants from your aphids and find out what might be munching tiny holes in leaves.

Get to know the names of the different types of butterfly that live in your garden and see their beautiful markings up close. Find out which insects fly with jewel-like wings and which scuttle along the ground on lots of legs. Meet tough, armour-clad beetles that do battle with each other among the leaves and grass. Decorate your stuff with insect stickers that’ll make everyone squirm, and cover your school books or projects with giant stickers of colourful minibeasts.

7) RHS Ultimate Sticker Book Garden Flowers

This book will teach kids about the flowers all around them in gardens and parks. The fascinating facts accompanied by simple, fun activities such as matching stickers to picture shapes, a life-cycle follow-the-trail and a quiz make this book perfect for curious young minds.

Children will go on a journey as they fill in the sticker pages, and learn about sunflowers, tulips, roses, daffodils, geraniums, dahlias. From flowers that love the sun to those that grow in the shade, to the plants that provide food for garden birds, inside you’ll find a whole world of wonderful plants waiting to be discovered. The combination of engaging activities and easy-to-understand information given in bite-sized pieces makes it easy for children to learn as they play.

8) RHS Ultimate Sticker Book Trees and Leaves

Children will love finding out about different trees in gardens and parks in this engaging RHS sticker activity book with fascinating information about trees and leaves and more than 250 stickers.

Go on a journey as you fill in the pages with stickers and learn about the seeds, leaves, flowers and fruits that come from trees. Find out about which trees keep their leaves all year round, and which ones don't. Discover how a seed grows into a tree, and which animals make their homes in trees.

This informative sticker book encourages children's interest in nature. The fascinating facts accompanied by simple, fun activities, such as matching stickers to picture shapes, follow-the-trail and a quiz, make the content perfect for curious young minds. The combination of engaging activities and easy-to-understand information given in small snippets will make it simple for children to learn as they play, and encourage them to go out and explore gardens and parks so they can spot all the trees and leaves they have learned about.

9) RHS Under Your Feet

Down where worms wriggle and microbes squirm, there’s a whole world waiting to be discovered... Under Your Feet delves beneath the Earth’s surface and explores the diverse wonders hidden there. Encounter creatures of the deep and marvel at the mind-boggling size of the humongous fungus - the biggest organism in the world. Learn how one handful of ordinary soil contains more organisms than there are people on Earth, and carry out experiments using dirt from your own back garden.

This book offers you the opportunity to expand your knowledge of the natural world and soil-dwelling creatures big and small. Bursting with colourful illustrations and photography, this is the perfect book for budding young plant experts, animal fanatics, geologists, and anyone who is curious about the ground we walk on.

10) RHS Plants Save the World

From tiny seeds and weeds to massive trees, plants come in all different shapes, sizes and colours. They can be found all over the world. In fact, they’re so common, we hardly notice them at all. Plants are the foundation of all life on Earth – without them, we cannot survive. They provide food and medicine, clean the air we breathe, provide habitats for animals, protect against disasters, such as flooding, and are used to make products that we use every day. This book is aimed at children aged 7+ and supports the science curriculum in the study of plant life cycles, plant parts, food chains, ecosystems, deforestation and habitats at KS2.