Cons: Small parts, some difficulty in putting together, not all seeds took.
The Bottom Line: Despite its imperfections, children will benefit from a toy like this. If you have a child that's curious about how things grow, this is a GREAT toy to invest in.
pixelfaler's Full Review: Summit Appliances Division Garden Girlz Meadow Man...
The Garden Girlz Meadow Mansion playset is one of the coolest things I've seen come out of the toy industry in a long time. I saw a commercial for this toy and said to myself "I HAVE to get that! If not for my daughter, then for me."
Basically, someone finally came up with a truly "green" dollhouse. The plastic house is actually shaped more like a flower, with opening petals for easier access to the play areas. The rest of the unit is designed to hold your germinating seeds. The plastic is molded to hold a bit of the white seed matting, which is what your seeds grow on. So, when it's all said and done, the house is not only your child's plaything, but a home for living plants as well. Very neat!
However, with all things "neat", it is by no means "perfect". The setup for the seeds takes 24-hours, as you have to soak the seed matting and the seeds themselves so they will sprout when placed in the Garden Girlz mansion setup. The matting itself isn't too difficult to place, but it's not always cooperative when it comes to staying put. There were a few places where matting was supposed to go that I just did without because I couldn't manage to get it to stay put. The seeds were very small and tended to stick to everything EXCEPT what they were supposed to. It took quite a bit of work to get the seeds in place, but once they were there, they stayed put.
The product manufacturers indicate that your garden will be growing within seven days. And, for the most part, that's true. The unit my child has came with two seed packets: one was bean sprouts and one was a type of grass seed. The sprouts took, no problem. The grass, however, did not. I don't think this has much to do with setting up or maintaining the garden at all, but more like we just got a bad packet of seeds, because not ONE took. My daughter still thinks it's cool to have a living garden in her dollhouse. The garden even came with it's own little watering can that she can use to care for her plants.
The Garden Girlz Meadow Mansion also came with a small doll, a few pieces of furniture, a mailbox and a few artificial flowers that can be stuck in with the living garden for added effect. While certainly cute, they are definite vacuum fodder, as they are TINY! I think Polly Pocket might be slightly bigger, but that's just from what I've seen in the stores. That certainly hasn't stopped my child from enjoying her playset with some of her other smaller playthings as well as her new Garden Girl. She's having a great time with it, even if she keeps losing the pieces.
Sure, this toy is not perfect and is definitely not for the very young crowd, due to the pieces involved, but this toy does offer one last thing that had me sold. A percentage of the sales from the Garden Girlz Meadow Mansion is being given to the National Arbor Day Foundation to purchase trees to be planted in the National Parks.
Now, who can't get behind something that's as cool as the Chia Pet, as fun as a playset and is charitable at heart? I'm glad I asked my mother-in-law to get my child this toy for Christmas this year. She loves learning about the plants as they grow and having the responsibility to water them and make sure they get sunlight and I love the fact that, in our own little way, we gave back.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 25.00 Type of Toy: Playscene
Age Range of Child: 3 to 5 Years
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