Kemnay Academy

Bug hotel

Reused pots

Plants for pollinators

Every garden has a story to tell about the people who helped make it, the challenges faced, solutions found, lessons learned and the unexpected pleasures along the way. Here's Kemnay Academy's Pocket Garden Story in their own words.

We created our garden based on the buildings in Singapore, as they are helping the environment by integrating plants. We found our basic design to be uninteresting; it looked too plain and felt too clinical. We wanted to add something to make it look more charismatic.

We noticed that the tubing made it look like a helter skelter, so we stuck with the theme of fun. A garden centre in Aberdeenshire gladly agreed to donate plants to our project. They get their plants from the local area and had lots of ideas to help us. A member of the local bee keeping group has also been very helpful and has given us ideas about design and how to arrange our plants.

A challenge we experienced was when other classes did not respect our plants and put them in bright sun. We worked hard to let them know why it was important that our plants could grow well and they began to help us by watering and growing more plants. We have really enjoyed this project and feel very proud of our design and how it is working out. Lots of teachers and pupils have been to look at our work and to offer advice and help.

Drawing the bunting

Seedlings growing

Bunting design