Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay offers camps for a variety of interests and age groups. Children learn about gardening, wildlife, flowers and trees, veggies, and a lot more. They enjoy hands-on activities and crafts, stories and discoveries, all led by experienced instructors. And now is the time to register for this season’s camps.

The Little Diggers Gardening and Nature Series for ages 3-5, accompanied by an adult, starts March 21, with 9:30-11:30 a.m. sessions every other Thursday until May 30. 

Fees, which include Gardens admission for one child and one adult, are $70 per series for members and $100 for nonmembers. The second, and different, six-session series begins Thursday, June 13, and ends August 22 and is available as individual classes for $12 for members and $17 for non-members or at the series price. 

Nature Explorers camp for ages 9-11 is the week of Monday-Friday, July 8-12, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day. This is a great chance for kids who love the outdoors to learn skills, including geocaching, while discovering the nature that abounds in the forest and along the shore. The kids will even create caches for Gardens guests to enjoy. Prices are $170 for members and $200 for nonmembers. 

Nature Adventure Camp offers two different sessions, Monday-Friday, July 15-19 or July 29-August 2, for two age groups: ages 4-5 from 9:30 a.m. to noon and ages 6-8 from 1-3:30 p.m. Fees for each week-long session are $105 for members and $130 for non-members. This fun-filled camp fully engages children in an outdoor setting, while encouraging imagination and creativity through garden walks, stories, games, arts-and-crafts and nature-related projects.

Garden Explorers Camp, from Monday-Friday, August 12-16, also meets from 9:30 a.m. to noon for ages 4-5 and 1-3:30 p.m. for ages 6-8. Fees are $105 for members and $130 for nonmembers. Budding gardeners will dig, plant, water, and harvest as they learn how to care for plants in the Learning Garden and greenhouse. They’ll enjoy experiments, taste tests, games and take-home garden projects, too.

More for the kids

Storytimes are currently every Monday at 10 a.m., and throughout the  summer young Gardens guests will find daily activities, from storytime and puppet shows to feeding chickens. Fairy Fridays in July and August will be great family fun. 

On Friday, May 24, at 6:30 p.m., the Gardens will present a special free  showing of the 1993 film version of the classic novel “The Secret Garden.” This event is in collaboration with the Boothbay Harbor Memorial Library’s “Books to Screen” program.   

More classes are planned for this summer, and a Gardens Activity Passport for Kids that will offer a discount on youth education programs will be available soon. For the latest schedule and updates, visit www.mainegardens.org or call 207-633-4333, ext. 101, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, on Barters Island Road just over a mile from the Boothbay common, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.