A Little Nature-Made Magic at Ashuelot River Park

Back in July, while two Monadnock Garden Club members were at Ashuelot River Park, they noticed a large and very happy group gathered in the garden bed maintained by the club.

Curious about what was underway, they stopped to chat and discovered a group from Antioch University’s Nature-Based Early Childhood Education program.

The students were exploring ways to create with natural materials, using flowers, leaves, stones, bark, twigs, and other small treasures from the landscape to make fairy houses and ephemeral artworks. Their intention was to take these ideas into the classrooms and outdoor spaces where they will be working with children.

The results were wonderfully playful: petals tucked between stones, tiny arrangements assembled on the grass, leaves transformed with carefully placed twigs, and flowers radiating across the paving stones in an impromptu work of land art.

It was a charming encounter and a lovely reminder of all the ways a public garden can invite curiosity and creativity. A garden can be more than something beautiful to look at. It can also become a classroom, an art studio, and a place where children learn to notice the natural world a little more closely.

Pictured are Laura, Ashley, and Kristen, three members of the Antioch group.

Photographed at Ashuelot River Park in July 2026 by Jennifer Campbell