A few weeks ago Keith and I got the chance to take our first class at Columbus Garden School. They are located on Cooke Road near I-71 and they offer all kinds of gardening, crafting, and DIY classes. The class we were able to attend was a Garden Leaves class where we made cement leaves to put in our landscaping.

The process was actually pretty straight-forward and a lot of fun! We had to bring any large leaves we had (I had rhubarb) and dishwashing gloves. We started by laying our leaf on a mound of sand covered by plastic. This will allow the leaves to hold water if we wish for them to be bird baths/insect watering containers.

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Our next task was to mix a 2:1 ratio of play sand to Portland concrete. We then added water until it reached the proper consistency. Then it was time to carefully cover our leaves with about 1/2″ of the concrete mixture.

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At that point, we had to clean up our supplies and leave them to dry for a couple of days. We also carved our initials in the back. Two days later, I went back to retrieve our finished pieces. I had to tear out the leaves to reveal our awesome concrete garden accessories! How cool do they look?!?

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I couldn’t wait to get home and get them in our landscaping! They are super fun, and do hold some water when it rains. I think a cat (Jiji!!) might have laid in mine, so now I get to try to patch it. But, I have photos of how cool it was before it broke…

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Overall, we really enjoyed this class and would 100% recommend it to anyone. We will be back at Columbus Garden School as soon as our schedule allows. Great experience!