Our garden represents our link to Shakespeare’s Macbeth and our position at the foot of Birnam Hill and Birnam Wood. 

A wooden pallet was painted to be the backdrop of Birnam Hill, and we have made a castle out of some old pots and a planter. Dunkeld Telford Bridge has been built from old pots and filled with straw. We had to change our plans a bit: we were going to cut a car tyre in half, but it was too tricky.

We reused a plastic Halloween cauldron as a water feature …but it was borrowed for sports day and got lost – luckily we found a brass pot in the shed which took its place. The children liked its aesthetic better too!

To encourage wildlife, we included herbs such as chives (which the bees love), lemon thyme, mint, white hyssop, sage and mint. We also planted parsley but it was eaten by the rabbits! The herbs will attract pollinators as will flowering plants such as poached egg plant, forget me not and honeysuckle.

We have a water feature for insects and birds. The castle is a hedgehog home and we have filled pots with straw to make a bug hotel. We were also mindful of the importance of water for birds and bugs.  The cauldron has a stone in it that birds can perch on.

Edible crops include strawberries, broad beans, herbs, lettuce, tomatoes and strawberries.  We lost some plants to the rabbits and had to protect the garden from these pesky critters by covering it with (at different times) a cloche, netting and fleece.

We learned not to keep broad beans  inside for too long – with too much heat and not enough light they became very leggy! We also learned how important it is to protect plants with fleece etc.

Parents donated plants and plant pots, and we had advice from mentors and from the lovely people at Little Trochry Farm.  We haven’t decided what we will do with the garden after the competition, but we have spoken about relocating it or repositioning the plants in our main garden – hopefully away from the rabbits!

Our gardening club has a very fluid membership – everyone is welcome, and attendance is not compulsory so quite a few different children were involved in designing and making the garden, including some absolute stalwart young gardeners. They enjoyed having a creative challenge during the winter months and then the quiet and relative calm of the garden working in groups or individually towards a common goal.