Carrick Knowe Primary School

This Pop Up Garden reuses an old wheelbarrow as a big planter box.  It contains a mini loch surrounded by stones gathered from nearby Loch Voil and lots of edible plants.

Sammy is in P4 at Carrick Knowe Primary School in Edinburgh. He designed and grew this garden. He started with a mind map of all his ideas.  Mum Ele says:

"We drilled holes in an old wheelbarrow and filled it with compost from our garden compost bin. Sammy added rotted wood around the edges for the creepy crawlers to live in. He created a mini loch and placed stones that we gathered from Loch Voil around it along with a fossil that we found on Barns Ness beach in East Lothian.

Sammy added a sandy beach and some turtles. He also painted a ladybird with 20 spots to recognise the twentieth anniversary. He added two tin can bunnies as they’re his favourite animal and planted wild flowers in them. To eat he planted peas, strawberries, rocket and lettuce. He also added some poppy seeds, an aguilera and some little yellow flowers he found in the garden.

The rocket grew very big, we ate some and let the rest flower, the bees like it. The poppy was beautiful but only lasted a day as wind blew the petals off. It was a nice lockdown project".

Painted turtle rock

Twenty spot ladybird rock

Bunny planters

Sammy started with a mind map of all his Pop Up Garden ideas.

Sammy's design used an old wheelbarrow

Tying up the canes

Hiding spots for insects

This Pop Up Garden is a Coast and Water Garden.  Water is part of our working and industrial heritage from the fishing fleet to the canal transport network, aquaducts, bridges, and the power generated by water mills and modern hydro-electric systems.  Water links the natural world to the heart of our cities.