Plant Coloring Pages

Houseplants have filled a lot of windowsills in the last few years, and children are often the ones who remember to water them. These plant coloring pages go from the plants people keep indoors to the ones growing outside, and show a few things plants do that are usually hidden underground.

The houseplants come first: a monstera with its split leaves in a woven basket, a row of succulents on a windowsill, a spider plant in a macrame hanger with babies trailing on long runners, a tall aloe beside a pair of gardening gloves, a striped snake plant, a string of hearts spilling from a shelf, a bonsai pine on a low table and a cactus garden in a shallow dish, with a prickly pear and a smiling chibi cactus in a polka dot pot. Two carnivorous plants are here too: a Venus flytrap on a mossy stump and a pitcher plant with a frog peeking out of one pitcher.

Several pages show how plants grow. A fern unrolls a new frond from a tight spiral, seed trays sprout in a greenhouse, a bulb sends out roots in a cutaway pot, an avocado pit balances on toothpicks over a jar of water with a shoot on top and roots below, a dandelion lets its seeds float away, and a sunflower shows the spirals of seeds in its center. The garden fills the rest: a tomato plant on a stake, ivy on a trellis, a pumpkin vine on a fence, a wheelbarrow of potted plants, a potting bench covered in tools, a window box of petunias above a sleeping cat, a lotus on a pond, a bamboo grove, a field of tulips leading to a windmill, a flowering cherry branch, a pineapple plant, mushrooms on a log, a hedgehog asleep in the clover and a tiny fairy watering a seedling in an acorn cup. A leaf mandala, a fern and wildflower pattern and a eucalyptus wreath finish the set.

How a plant makes its own food

A plant does not eat. It makes its food in its leaves, using sunlight, the water drawn up through its roots and a gas from the air called carbon dioxide. This is photosynthesis, and the green in every leaf comes from chlorophyll, the substance that catches the light. As a leftover, the plant releases oxygen, the air we breathe.

It explains the monstera's big leaves and the fern's many fronds: more leaf means more light caught. It also explains why a houseplant on a dark shelf grows long and pale, stretching toward the window.

Plants that eat insects

Some plants live in poor, boggy soil with too little food in it, and they make up for it by catching insects. The Venus flytrap snaps shut when an insect touches the tiny trigger hairs inside its trap, but only if two hairs are touched within about twenty seconds, so a falling raindrop does not set it off. The pitcher plant is a slippery jug of liquid that insects fall into and cannot climb out of. Both still make their food from sunlight like any other plant; the insects are only extra vitamins.

Coloring greens that do not all look the same

The trick with plant pages is to use several greens, not one.

• Monstera and ivy: deep, dark green, with a lighter green for new leaves.
• Succulents and aloe: blue-green or gray-green, often with pink or red tips.
• Ferns and new shoots: bright yellow-green.
• Snake plant: dark green with pale green or yellow bands, and yellow edges on some kinds.
• Cacti: sage green, with white or yellow spines and pink or yellow flowers.
• Pots: terracotta is orange-brown; a lighter band of the same color at the rim makes it look round.

On a leaf, color the center vein slightly lighter than the rest and it will look alive.

Simple plants and full gardens

The easiest pages have one plant, large, on a plain background: the prickly pear, the avocado in its jar, the lotus. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Prickly pear cactus
• Sprouting an avocado pit
• Lotus on a pond

The detailed ones are dense with leaves and stalks, like the tulip field, the bamboo grove and the leaf mandala. Lots of detail begins with:

• Tulip field
• Bamboo grove
• Leaf mandala

Grow one while you color it

The avocado page is an experiment you can run at the kitchen table. Wash and dry an avocado pit, push three toothpicks into its sides, and set it pointed end up over a glass of water so the bottom stays wet. Keep it somewhere bright and top up the water. After a few weeks the pit cracks, roots grow down and a shoot comes up, exactly as on the page. Color the page on the first day, then again when the first leaf opens, and pin the two side by side.

Printing a greenhouse

Every page is a free PDF drawn on A4 at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" scales it down about six percent so the tallest leaves stay on the sheet. The printing guide shows where to find it. Add to pack gathers a whole windowsill into one file. More blooms are in the flower coloring pages, bigger plants in the tree coloring pages, the forest floor in the mushroom coloring pages and the new season in the spring coloring pages.