The Wild Garden

The Wild Garden – review and giveaway

As a child I can remember loving rub down transfer books, but I haven’t seen one for a long time.  It’s certainly not something that my 7-year-old has ever seen before.  When Usborne Publishing contacted me about the recently published The Wild Garden, it brought back so many memories from my childhood.  I couldn’t wait to see the book for myself and introduce Monkey to the concept of rub down transfer books.

The Wild Garden

The Wild Garden is the sort of book that you can enjoy completing alone or as a shared family activity (recommended for children aged 5 years and over).  It would make a lovely birthday or Mother’s Day present too in my opinion. We all need to take some time out of our busy lives at some point and it’s been wonderful to immerse ourselves in this activity over the last few days.

The 24 page books comes with some lovely transfer sheets full of flowers, butterflies, frogs and other mini beasts. The transfer sheets are stored in an envelope inside the front cover of The Wild Garden.

As you go through the pages of the book, you find one page with a line drawing to colour in and on the opposite page, the colour version, all ready to apply transfers to.

With a wide selection of scenes to complete, my son and I decided we’d work on The Summer Meadow, and add poppies and cow parsley to the picture along with a few mini beasts.

I explained the concept of rub on transfers, basically to place your transfer in the required place colour side up and then you colour over it with a biro.  Once completed, gently peel away the paper and the transfer is left in place on the page.  My son has been fascinated by the experience.  Little things.

I’ve been really impressed with how considered Monkey has been, with both the placement of the transfers and the actual rubbing process.  It’s been lovely to watch him at work. The Wild Garden is providing us with some much-needed chill out time after school, and a lovely activity to work on together.  We complete a little detail every day and are in no hurry to complete each scene.

The Wild Garden

More cow parsley is required apparently, but not without my son’s supervision.  Priced at £12.99, The Wild Garden really is a lovely book to enjoy and treasure once completed.  Available from the Usborne Publishing website, where you can find a wonderful selection of books for all ages.  We have been fans since Monkey was a baby, they really are quality books.

disclosure:  we were sent the item mentioned in exchange for an honest review


I’m thrilled to be able to offer one lucky reader the chance to own The Wild Garden for themselves.  Just complete the Gleam form below for your chance – good luck!

Terms and conditions:

(Please note that all entries will be checked against comments for validation).

Only the first step of this form is mandatory, all other steps are optional. Only one entry per person is allowed.

This giveaway is for UK residents only.

Once a winner is randomly picked, I will check if the winner has done what was requested and I will contact them, if they do not reply within one week, the prize will be allocated to another person.

The giveaway will close on 26th March 2017 at midnight.

Don’t forget to visit my Giveaways page for more great prizes on offer!

The Wild Garden rub down transfer book worth £12.99

141 thoughts on “The Wild Garden – review and giveaway

  1. Bluebells because they are so pretty and add a wonderful carpet of colour to so many areas of the countryside

  2. Bluebells as I love their colour and they way they hang their little heads! It is so lovely to see bluebells when walking through the woods!

  3. I love snowdrops,they are just wonderful when you see them blanketing the floor of the woods.

  4. I love the scent of bluebells and remember my nan taking me to the bluebell woods when I was a child!

  5. Bluebells, there was a wood near our house, we used to walk the dogs there as kids, it was full of Bluebells

  6. Dandelions my mum’s favourite saying ….dont pick them you’ll wet the bed
    Fond memories that always make me smile when I see them

  7. I love dandelions – they are not weeds they are flowers… and fun to blow the seeds off.

  8. I love daffodils, as they are a sign of spring , and hopefully the end of winter . They also remind me of mother’s day , when as a boy I would buy some for my mother

  9. I love daisies. had hours of fun as a child making daisy chains and perfume and pressing them. Always brings back good memories

  10. Bluebells – they seem to herald proper spring, are something that remind me of woodland walks as a child, and I love the colour.

  11. i love poppies, no particular reason but red is my favourite colour maybe thats why i love them !

  12. Mine is poppies because they have a special meaning for me and are connected to a loved one.

  13. Violets, because they remind me of the woods I roamed in during my childhood (which were full of violets).

  14. I love cornflowers and love the vivid blue colour of them all together in the local fields.Am now growing them in the garden with some success.

  15. I love any flower even weeds when i was young my dad was in the air-force and we always traveled my granddad planted forget- me -knots but I am not sure if they are classed as wild . so I would say blue- bells I remember picking them for my mum one very cold spring day and she cried.

  16. I suppose Buttercups are a weed. But who hasn’t checked to see if they like butter under their chin?

  17. My favourite is cornflowers. They are such pretty little things and the colour is just so unique and beautiful.

  18. I like to see all wildflowers they are interesting I like bluebells and Harebells the best. I used to go for walks with my grandma when I was little. Always there were masses of them. I also like Cowslips .

  19. Bluebells are my favourite wild flower. love to see them especially in a woodland setting 🙂

  20. Snowdrops have always been my favourite, they’re so delicate but they push up through the snow.

  21. Bluebells, as they are pretty :- And I can recall as a child picking some nearby the family home.

  22. My favourite wild flower is the Poppy because of it’s significance to the country in terms of rememberance, it’s vivid red and black colour and the facet that it just seems to pop up everywhere.

  23. For me i love daisies they are pretty and each one may look the same but look closer each one is unique,I love making daisy chains when i was a kids and 40 years later im still making them with the kids,

  24. Primroses, they used to grow everywhere at my grandparents home in the countryside when I was a child.

  25. Daisies because they remind me of my childhood when all the neighbours children would gather on the green to make daisy chains

  26. Snowdrops/bluebells – where I used to live we had a wood below our garden and it would be covered in bluebells!

  27. Wow now you are asking: I love cowslips as they are dainty and lovely to look at.
    But Bluebells take my breath away when they make a magical blue carpet…..

  28. Bluebells they are a beautiful pretty colour and they are my mum’s favourite flower so whenever I come across bluebells they always put a smile on my face.

  29. Daisies – I used to love making daisy chains as a child. They always make grass look pretty too!

  30. I love dandelions because I pluck the petals and make wine from them which is really lovely.

  31. I love bluebells. They remind me of my childhood walking through the woods – so beautiful, a carpet of blue x

  32. Violets are my favorite wildflower, my Nana’s name was Violet and I love their beautiful little purple faces in Spring when they cover the garden…beautiful

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