Clackmannanshire Schools' Support Services
🏅 Winner in 2023
"When You See The Ochil Hills You Know You're Home"
🌿What was your favourite part of creating your garden?
Pupil: When I had heard of the theme being “Wonderful fresh water” I thought of the water cycle. I wanted to keep the idea local so I began with the Ochil hills. Many people up near the hills rely on the water cycle which involves the Ochils to give fresh water to their farms. I really wanted to show this in my garden, this was my favourite part. Pupil: Planting the plants in the garden and tending to them. I enjoyed getting dirty at some points while working on the garden, I enjoyed working with the group and collaborating with them.
🌿Did you face any challenges and how did you respond to them?
Pupil: There were some issues with putting my design into reality but me and the rest of the group kept tweaking things and experimenting and I think it turned out fantastic.
🌿What did you learn whilst creating your garden?
Pupil: The main thing we learned was how to grow using a hydroponics system. We did some research on plants that fit your criteria. We had seeds donated by staff and used a machine called a propagator, to germinate the seeds. Once the seeds had sprouted we got to work on setting up the hydroponics tower. A hydroponics tower is a way that plants can grow without soil. We had to fill up the bucket at the bottom with water and mix in a special nutrient solution. Once the seedlings were big enough we planted them outside in the pocket garden.
🌿What will happen to your garden after the competition has finished?
Pupil: We didn't quite finish our water butt made of old tires. We would like to finish this to help with the watering before the summer. Pupil: We recycled our old pocket garden to create this one. In the future we'd like to continue this process and keep reusing and recycling the pocket garden each year to match the different themes.
🌿Garden design
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