How to Make a Bean Teepee (a Living Den)

There is a kind of gardening magic that children never forget: a green den they can crawl inside on a warm afternoon, walls made of leaves, with red flowers dangling overhead and beans they can pick for tea. A bean teepee is exactly that — a living wigwam of climbing plants that starts as a few bare canes in spring and turns into a secret hideaway by the summer holidays. It is one of the easiest and most rewarding projects you can do with a child, and you can build the frame in an afternoon.

This guide walks you through making one in a UK garden, from the canes you push into the ground in May to the beans you pick in August. It is part of our wider getting kids growing hub, where you'll find more simple projects for little hands.

What it is and why children love it

A bean teepee (sometimes called a bean wigwam, a sunflower den or a runner bean tunnel) is a circle of tall canes tied together at the top, with climbing plants growing up each cane. As the plants grow, they wrap around the canes and knit together into leafy walls, leaving a hollow space in the middle just big enough for a child to sit inside.

The appeal for children is obvious. It is a den they helped to build and then watched come alive. They get to plant the seeds, water the den every day, count the leaves climbing higher, spot the bees visiting the flowers, and finally pick beans from inside their own green room. It turns out of sight, out of mind into something they check on constantly — which is the whole point of growing with kids.

It is also a brilliant first taste of real gardening. The plants are fast, forgiving and visibly rewarding, so children stay interested. If you are looking for more confidence-building wins like this, our guide to easy crops for kids gathers the quickest, cheeriest things to grow together.

What you need

You don't need much, and most of it you may already have in the shed.

• 6–8 long canes, about 2.4m tall. Bamboo canes are cheapest and perfect. The taller the better — remember a good chunk goes into the ground, so a 2.4m cane gives a den a child can comfortably stand or sit inside.
• String or garden twine to tie the top together. Soft jute twine is kind to little fingers.
• A sunny patch of ground about 1.2–1.5m across — beans love sun and warmth. A spot sheltered from strong wind is ideal, as a teepee in full leaf can catch the breeze like a sail.
• Climbing seeds or young plants — runner beans are the classic, with sweet peas and nasturtiums as cheerful extras (more on these below).
• A watering can — ideally one small enough for your child to carry, so watering becomes their job.

No garden? You can build a smaller version in a large, deep pot or half-barrel on a patio. Use shorter canes (around 1.8m), a strong container at least 45cm wide, and good multipurpose compost. Our guide to growing food in containers has more on pots and compost if you're going down the patio route.

Building the wigwam frame

This is the fun part, and the bit children love helping with. Pick your spot, then:

1. Mark a circle about 1.2m across. A loop of string pegged in the centre and swept round like a compass works well, or just eyeball it — it doesn't need to be perfect.
2. Push the canes in evenly spaced around the circle, pointing slightly inwards so the tops lean towards the middle. Push each one 20–30cm into the soil so it's firm and won't wobble. Firm, damp soil grips best.
3. Leave a gap for a doorway. Skip the space between two canes so there's an opening wide enough for a child to crawl through. Face the doorway away from the prevailing wind if you can.
4. Gather the tops together so the canes meet in a point above the centre, like a tent. An adult job, this — hold them steady while a child watches.
5. Tie the top tightly with twine. Wrap it round several times, looping between the canes in a figure-of-eight, and knot it firmly. A blob of string is fine; it just needs to hold.

Give the whole frame a gentle shake. If it sways, push the feet of the canes in further or splay them a touch wider. A wobbly frame in May becomes a collapsed den in an August gust, so it's worth getting solid now.

What to grow up it

The plants are what turn a frame of sticks into a living den. Here are the best choices for a UK summer.

Runner beans are the classic and our top pick. They climb fast, throw out big heart-shaped leaves that knit into proper walls, and produce pretty red, white or bicoloured flowers followed by heaps of beans. Children love the scarlet flowers and the satisfaction of picking a meal from their own den. Varieties like 'Scarlet Emperor', 'Painted Lady' (red and white flowers) or stringless 'Firestorm' are all reliable and easy. For the full lowdown on growing them — sowing, supporting, picking and the odd hiccup — see our complete guide to growing beans.

Sweet peas add scent and beauty. They won't give you anything to eat, but they cover canes quickly and fill the den with frilly, fragrant flowers in pinks, purples and blues. Pick them often and they'll keep flowering for weeks — perfect for a jam jar on the kitchen table. Grow a few sweet peas up some of the canes alongside the beans for a den that smells as good as it looks.

Climbing nasturtiums are a lovely, no-fuss extra. They romp up canes with rounded leaves and bright orange, red and yellow flowers, and they're as easy as it gets to grow from seed. The flowers and leaves are actually edible (peppery, like rocket) and look gorgeous scattered on a salad — a nice talking point for a child.

Even a squash can work if you have the space and a really sturdy frame. A trailing squash or small pumpkin trained up and over makes dramatic, jungly walls — just know the fruits are heavy, so tie stems in well and keep the teepee robust.

The nicest dens mix two or three of these: runner beans for the bulk and the harvest, sweet peas for scent, and a few nasturtiums tumbling round the doorway.

Sowing and growing

Climbing beans are warmth-lovers and frost will kill them, so timing matters. The safe rule in the UK is to wait until after the last frost — that's usually late May across most of the country, early June in the colder north and Scotland. If you want a head start, sow seeds indoors in pots in April and plant the young plants out once the frosts have passed and they've been hardened off. If you'd like to know your own area's frost dates, our planting calendar helps you pin down the right week.

To sow straight into the ground:

1. Sow two beans at the foot of each cane, about 5cm deep, once the soil has warmed. Two per cane is insurance — if both come up, simply keep the stronger seedling.
2. Water them in and keep the soil damp while they germinate. Bean seeds are big and easy for little fingers to handle, which makes them a brilliant first sowing.
3. Watch for the shoots appearing within a week or two as the soil warms.

Once they're a few centimetres tall, the plants start searching for something to climb. Guide the shoots onto the canes by gently winding them around in the direction they naturally twist — anticlockwise for runner beans. After a nudge or two they take over and climb by themselves. This is a lovely daily job for a child: check the den, wind in any stray shoots, and see how much higher it's grown.

Water well, especially in dry spells — beans are thirsty, and a dry plant drops its flowers instead of setting beans. A good soak every couple of days in warm weather beats a daily splash. Watering is the perfect task to hand to your child; a small can and a clear job keep them coming back to the den.

Using the den and harvesting through summer

By July the walls thicken and the den becomes properly usable — a shady green hideaway for reading, picnics, hide-and-seek or just sitting and watching the bees. Pop a picnic blanket or an old waterproof cushion inside and it becomes the most popular corner of the garden.

Through late summer the real bonus arrives: beans to pick. Runner beans are ready when the pods are around 15–20cm long, firm and snapping fresh, before they get tough and stringy. Send your child in to hunt for them through the leafy walls — picking from inside the den is the best bit of the whole project.

Here's the trick worth teaching: the more you pick, the more you get. Keep harvesting every few days and the plants keep flowering and cropping right into September. Leave pods on too long and the plant thinks its work is done and slows down. A handful of beans, steamed for a couple of minutes, often persuades a doubtful child to try a vegetable they grew themselves — which is a small victory all of its own.

When autumn comes and the first frosts blacken the plants, you can cut everything down, untie the canes and store them dry for next year. The whole adventure starts again come spring.

The wildlife bonus

A bean teepee isn't just a den — it's a busy little wildlife station. Runner bean and sweet pea flowers are rich in nectar, and on a sunny day the teepee hums with bumblebees working the blooms. Sitting inside the den watching bees come and go (safely, from within the leaves) is a wonderful, gentle introduction to why pollinators matter.

In fact, those bees are doing your child a favour: bean flowers need insects to move pollen between them so the pods can form, so more bees means more beans. It's a neat, visible example of how the garden works together. To turn the den into part of a wider buzzing garden, pair it with other nectar-rich plants from our guide to pollinator plants, or explore the whole wildlife-friendly garden section for more ways to welcome bees, birds and butterflies.

The teepee, then, gives you everything at once: a building project, a growing project, a den, a harvest and a wildlife haven — all from a few canes and a packet of seeds.

What you'll need to get growing

Once you've explained the idea to your child and they're itching to start, here are the few bits that get a teepee going. None of it is expensive, and the canes will last for years.

If you'd like to buy your beans as a head start, here's a tried-and-tested variety:

Where to go next

A bean teepee is the kind of project that hooks children on growing for good. When they're ready for more, our easy crops for kids guide is full of quick, satisfying wins, and the kids hub ties together every project in this section — from cress on a windowsill to sunflowers taller than they are. Happy den-building.