Designing a regenerative garden for children in dialogue with a place

This article presents the establishment of a garden for preschool children as a regenerative design process. Conducted over four years (2019–2022) in Stavanger, this study follows how students in early childhood teacher education (ECTE) designed and developed a garden in dialogue with place. Via the use of reflexive thematic analysis, we analyse themes in the drawings and descriptions of child-directed gardening activities of the 2019 student cohort and trace how these ideas were realised or transformed over time. The findings show how the garden gradually developed through five interrelated dimensions: soil building, food production, sensory exploration and connectedness to the landscape, ecological learning in relation to historical and evolutionary processes, and social use. Drawing on Michel Serres’ philosophy, particularly his figure of the parasite, we conceptualise this process as a contingent and indirect landscape dialogue shaped by interruption and diversion. We argue that such dialogic patterns may, counterintuitively, support regenerative practices and that Serres’ later figure of the wandering citizen renders the role of parasitism in shaping communication and human–nature relations more nuanced. This article contributes both practical insight into the establishment of gardens for young children and a theoretical perspective on regenerative design of places and human–nature relations.