As part of our annual Garden Festival, now in its 30th year, we have invited primary schools to take part in our Schools Gardening Challenge. 14 local schools were involved with this initiative last year, and worked with us from January until June to create a garden with their children.
Our aim is to encourage children to think and learn about the natural environment in which they live. Flowerbeds can include topics such as biology, geography, art/design, and conservation. Practical working skills and working together as a team will be important elements of this project.
As part of this project the children see how to grow plants and the stages of plant growth from seed, germination, and maturity. The impact of our gardens on the environment and vice versa could also be covered as well as careful use of natural materials, consider using recycled compost, the benefits of growing your own food locally and how these impact on our environment.
We like the children to think about the different uses of plants in their gardens, understanding that plants can be grown not only as food but for colour and design purposes as well. Some plants can be both decorative and edible, i.e., red leaved lettuce, the yellow flowers on courgettes.
The winner of our gardening challenge will win a raised flowerbed similar to the one used on the show days but slightly deeper which will enable more to be grown in it. This has been the prize for 2 years now and has been very popular with all schools taking part. Arley also delivers the flowerbed to the winning school the week after the festival along with 10 packs of compost. All the materials to make the flower bed have previously been donated by Huws Gray Buildbase, Northwich and we are looking forward to them supporting us again next year.
Each school will also receive 10 adult and 10 child complimentary show entry tickets to be given to any staff, helpers or parents for their access on show days, they can only be used once.
Alongside the ‘official’ judging, which will take place at 10.30 on Saturday 28th June, and for which we really enjoy the children being present, we are also asking the public to vote by selecting their favourite flowerbed. Each visitor to the show will be given a token for them to vote for their favourite school, the winning school will also receive a prize which will be decided on soon.
We will be contacting all schools very soon but if you would like to confirm you place now please email helen.begent@arleyhallandgardens.com