Carluke High School

The Living Garden, hosted by the Garden for Life Forum promotes wildlife friendly gardening. Schools were invited to design a small garden including celebrating the 2017 year of History, Heritage and Archaeology. Bricks and jam are part of Carluke’s heritage and are used to great effect in this design that celebrates local history, local food and the importance of compost.

Woolly sheep

Reused jam jars

Finished planter

Every garden tells a story about the people who helped make it, the challenges faced, solutions found, lessons learned and the unexpected pleasures along the way. Here is Carluke High School’s Pocket Garden Story in their own words:

Our Pocket Garden represents the history and heritage of Carluke. The wildflower edges represent that Carluke is a rural area. The wildflowers increase biodiversity. The bricks segregating the wildflowers represent the town forming, but bricks are also used as Carluke has traditionally been a town known for the manufacture of bricks.

Carluke also has a large jam factory so fruits in orchard represent fruits for jam and herb garden will be grown in reused jam jars.

Carluke is also traditional for farming and has a very famous butchers - Ramsays - which is award winning. The veg grown will be traditional for farmers to rear pigs and cows.

The compost for veg is pig food but also shows off the importance of recycling. The centre is a Scottish flag (Scottish heritage). The garden will be filled with signs and artefacts to explain this.

Painting the pots

Growing tatties

Laying out the planters

Growing letters!