school garden

school garden

Tuesday 31 May 2011

The Greenhouse

The greenhouse, which is in fact too small greenhouses joined together was offered to us by a neighbour of Samantha's Mr ???? as he was selling his house before moving into a home and wanted to know that the greenhouse would go on being used.
 Insert photo

Pete and Steve took charge of dismantling the greenhouse and it was transported in many bits to the garden in June(?)

Greenhouse minus most of the glass
It was rebuilt at the top of the garden by the wall and has been a great asset allowing the children to see the different rates of grown for things grown in doors. So far in the greenhouse, there have been tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers and this year Steve has planted gourds, rice and papyrus. We are not certain, but this may be the first time rice has been grown in Dorset. The papyrus if it reaches maturity will be interesting for those children in year 5 who are studying the Egyptians who made paper from papyrus.


May 2011

These are the new rice plants, May 2011


Papyrus





Monday 30 May 2011

Back In The Garden

This is a neglected blog. Life gets in the way and stuff gets busy, and then you forget the login and the password and put off for another day, and then another. However, the garden has moved on so much since the last post I feel it it high time there was a run through of all that has taken place and what is still planned.
The willow classroom is filling out really well. The new pond is no longer new and has been the nursery for lots of dragonfly lavae. More on that later.
The raised bed area is well established with an addition last year of a special raised bed for the pupil how is in a wheel chair.
The memory corner was officially finished and opened last summer but for those of us working on the garden regularly there is still room for improvement. Most recently a sort of boundary fence between the raised bed area and the actual memory area.
Last summer a double length second hand green house was erected and this has helped us to start a lot of things off early this year.
As a result of a competition held last year to find a design for yet another part of the garden, we now have a World War II garden complete with Anderson Shelter.
To Try and deal with all that has taken place I will work through chronologically.

Firstly the creation of the Memory Corner. This is a quiet area of the garden. A place to sit and simple contemplate and listen to the sounds of nature and take in the peace and quiet. We were helped along the way by a donation of £1500 from Holy Trinity Church in Weymouth and with some of the money provided in a lottery grant.

This is the area before we started.


We got quotes from serveral local landscaping/gardening people and decided on Dorset craftsperson Roger Lanigan from Mayfield Rural Products to do the work as he seemed to understand what we wanted to achieve.

The Work in Progress

The Finished Memory Corner

Riased bed

Grasses, lavender and rosemary with carved oak pieces

Piece of stone donated by Albion Quarries on Portland and carved by a school parent



Toadstool seating for the children
Hi guys, we are still here and loving it.