Livingston Village Primary School

Harry Potter’s Herbology Classroom

Our story garden relates to the Harry Potter stories which are favourites of many in our class. Look out for features such as the lavender sprouting out of the Sorting Hat, Bluebells bursting from Hermione’s wands in the Bug Hotel, flying keys, broomsticks, the Pensieve birdbath, Harry Potter themed painted pebbles, pots painted with characters and The Mirror of Erised.

Gryffindor bluebells

Lots of recycled containers

Bee visiting the garden

We included many features to make our garden wildlife friendly including; a luxury Bug Hotel with ‘wands’ that insects can crawl into, logs, pine cones and lichen, plants to attract bees and encourage pollination, feeders for birds and a birdbath.

We selected plants that would match each of the four Hogwart’s Houses colours (red, green, yellow and blue). The mint for Slytherin is edible and so is the wild garlic growing in the cauldron and the lavender growing in pots and from the Sorting Hat. Our lavender, mint and garlic create a beautiful perfume.

In creating this garden, we re-used pallets and wooden planks, upcycled a playground cone and old classroom chair, re-purposed a dog’s bowl, made bird feeders from plastic bottles and wands from leftover piping. We also recycled newspaper, tin cans and glass bottles to pot the plants on our House shelves.

Our learners developed so much knowledge and understanding about native plants and sustainability as well as improving leadership, research and creativity skills. We created new partnerships with West Lothian college and were supported by parents and local businesses; Klondyke Garden Centre and Johnstone’s Paints whom we are most grateful to.

Our garden is going to remain a feature within our school grounds and seeds have already been planted to maintain interest throughout the year.