Children growing

I wish I had been able to do gardening at school. A chance to grow. Luckily, my parents encouraged me in the garden, and I remember growing candytuft in a small area – I still love that flower.

Nowadays, thanks to keen volunteers, teachers and the RHS, a lot of schools give children the chance to experience the excitement of growing something, and the excuse to get dirty. At RHS Tatton Show, schools from the North West are encouraged to design and build gardens.

It was great to see the schools front to front gardens at the show. The schoolchildren had to design and build gardens based on their interpretation of a country. Each school was given a country to interpret. The gardens showed real imagination and a sense of fun and humour – I spent an enjoyable time wandering round; the more you looked, the more little details you could see.

Evelyn Street Primary School – Austria

Croft Primary School - China

Eaton Primary School - Mexico

Oaklands Community Kids & Cheshire West & Chester – Antartica

The gardens were great, but even better were the entrants for the Beautiful Butterflies and Busy Bees schools container competition. The schools were challenged to create a planted container with flowers to attract butterflies and bees. There were some wonderful bees. Thank you to all the children who put so much effort in to their entries – they really made me smile and I wanted to make some bees myself :-)

My favourite!