Holy Trinity Primary School Environmental Garden: "Turn your face to the sun...

and the shadows fall behind you"

A Maori Proverb

With fine weather continuing the Garden Group have pushed on over the past week and started to catch up with many outstanding jobs and plantings.

The World War 2 garden is now finished for this year. Potatoes and Broad Beans have been planted in the vegetable beds. The 'James Grieve' apple tree is in full blossom at the moment. We are hoping for a replacement curtain into the air raid shelter soon.

The World War 2 garden

The James Grieve apple tree in blossom

The 'lead in' bed to the Jurassic Garden has been tidied. The magnificent Fatsia plants were getting choked with vegetation. Now cleared the Fatsias and the unusual Corsican Hellibore have space to grow. One Fatsia plant has shed a lot of leaves but this is normal as the plant slowly achieves a tree like status

The growing fronds on the new Tree Fern

Detail of the growing fronds- beautifully constructed


The remaining Tree Ferns have had a haircut. The old fronds removed so that the new ones can reach for the light

Elsewhere some of the magnificent Echiums are in flower. As they tower up into the sky the small blue flowers are very much liked by bees of all species

Magnificent Echiums

After a sudden shower raindrops trapped on the leaves on the Melianthus (Peanut Butter plant) were photographed

In the same bed some tidying up and weeding has taken place and a new Banana plant, which has been nurtured in the greenhouse during the winter months, has been positioned along with many Cannas

The new Banana plant

Transporting the large Banana plant to the site

On the other side of the same bed the Geranium maderense plants have started to flower. Masses of pink flowers should adorn the plants by the end of next week.

Geranium maderense

Detail of the flowers

Many of the ferns in the Jurassic garden are awaking after the winter months with lovely bright green and orange colours.


Fresh fronds on a smaller fern

The Bird Cherry trees are in flower now. They have a heady scent.

The old triangular bed has been dug over for this year, until we decide what to plant in it on a more permanent basis, we have planted Cannas, Gingers a decorative Banana and other spare Geranium maderense plants.

The revamped triangular bed.

Decorative Banana plant

In the nest box by the Memory Garden a family of Blue Tits have moved in. The eggs should hatch within days.

Mum sat tight on the eggs!

Elsewhere the Robins are nesting somewhere close to the garden. Both parents have been very busy this past week carrying food to their hungry chicks.

'Our' garden Robin

Finishing the blog, we once again mention, as we did last year, the superb display of Thrift at Ferrybridge which is well worth a visit over the next week. The best area is the one away from the Chesil Centre towards Portland where Vetch, Sea Campion all grow in with the Thrift. We finish with some photographs of the area.