Our ‘Burrow and Nest’ garden is inspired by the natural engineering found in Scottish Woodlands. Pupils in P5 thought about the amazing builds that they see when they go for a walk in the woods and tried to incorporate them into their garden. They wanted to focus on burrows, nests and spider webs as they think that they show engineering at its best.  The giant burrow and a nest represent their favourite builds in nature.

Spider webs were also crocheted to decorate the area. Pupils were fascinated to learn more about nests and were astounded by the huge variety of nests that are built. They quickly realized how tricky nests are to construct with hands let alone only a beak.  In the base of the pallet pupil’s added twigs, bark and pine cones to the different sections to create a bug hotel. The woodlice seem to love it, they have already made it their home. 

The pocket garden is just outside the P5 classroom and they enjoy spotting the daily changes and the wildlife who visit. As well as the cheeky squirrel pupils have seen bees, sparrows, robins, magpies and even a ginger cat.

From planting to daily watering and maintenance, P5 have worked extremely hard to build and nurture their garden. They are so proud of the way that their garden has evolved and hope that seeing it will make you smile.

Pupils felt that, given the size limits of their garden, it would be best to build the burrow inside the nest.  P5 hope that they have demonstrated similar engineering skills to the animals that they were inspired by. They were certainly exposed to new skills such as digging and sculpting with mud, weaving with twigs and spinning with wool. This gave the opportunity to discuss the skill and precision required in the animal world to make their homes.

Almost everything in the P5 garden has been reused or recycled. The paddling pool (that became the burrow and nest) was an old pet pool that was donated. All of the turf and soil used to construct the burrow came from emptying out the planters from last year and from the grass removed from the area used to create space for our new fruit trees.  All of the twigs used to form the nest were collected from around our school grounds after some storms earlier in the year.

All of the plant pots were donated. The pallets that the garden has been built on were from last year’s competition and have been repainted to suit this year’s theme.

.

The herbs growing in the pots in the garden are all edible. The chives were all planted from seed for last year’s Pocket Garden entries, they have continued to grow over the winter, so were used again. Our gooseberry bush is young and pupils are delighted to see that 3 gooseberries are already growing on it.

Pupils thoroughly enjoyed building nests and planting seeds. They used the skills they learned from last year’s mistakes when planting and as a result had a much better success rate with their seedlings.

Pupils grew the nasturtium, runner beans, sweet peas and herbs from seed. All of the other plants in the garden were kindly donated to the school from several local shops after pupils wrote to them asking for support with their gardens.

Pupils enjoyed researching creatures that are found in the Scottish woodlands, they each chose a creature and made detailed sketches. These sketches were used to paint the rocks that are dotted around the garden.

One of the biggest challenges faced was a cheeky squirrel who kept eating the grass seeds that were sewn over the burrow. Every time pupils added seeds the squirrel would come and eat them. Eventually we added bird feeders around the garden and the squirrel became distracted by them for long enough to give the grass a chance to grow. Sadly, the wild flower seeds do not have seem to have grown. The extreme wet weather was also a setback as it meant that there was significantly less time available to be outdoors working on the garden than we hoped.