On Wednesday 4 th December students who are taking part in the RHS Green Plan-it competition are travelling to the Pavillions in Harrogate to present their ideas for our well-being garden. Good luck to Jake Gerrard, Ellie Peacock, Molly Hunter, Ella Thwaite, Zara Sunter, Abi Plumpton and Lillian Hardill -I will let you know how they get on. Below is an extract from their extremely well written and comprehensive report that they had to prepare for the day.
We designed our garden for everyone in school. We believe that mental health is extremely important, so we want our garden to be a place where people can relax, chat with friends and relieve stress. Our garden will be a working garden, meaning there will be opportunities for students to help plant, grow and care for plants. Working in a garden is proved to be beneficial for mental and physical health, which ties in perfectly with our aim for the garden.
While designing the garden, we talked with another group in school, who are doing a project called the John Muir Award, about ideas for the garden. It was really useful to hear another group’s perspective on our design, and they had some interesting ideas, some of which we were able to incorporate into the design.
The main plant in the garden is lavender, which is going to go all around most of the path. Lavender is very calming and is good for the brain. Its scent is used in complementary medicine as a calming and soothing scent. We thought this was a good idea as the garden was a well being garden.
We also have sunflowers along the front right fence, they represent happiness and positivity, they are very bright and will make a positive impact to the garden.
We have also decided to put herbs into the garden like camomile, we are incorporating a nectar bar in the garden for people to sit around to relax and think. We also wanted to encourage wildlife in the garden as we were concerned particularly about bees and butterflies. The butterflies are also around the garden.
One of the lessons that all of our team has had to overcome is the memories that this garden has come with our headboy, James Ashcroft, who sadly passed away in May of last year. However under the circumstances our team has pushed on to produce a presentable presentation and we had a lot of fun while doing it.
We have learnt a lot about plants but also about our fellow teammates. Not only have we learnt which plants would be appropriate for our garden but also what will attract wildlife and which plants will complement each other but also about companion planting. We have learnt a lot about what plants need to survive and we wouldn’t change a thing of what we’ve achieved as we are all extremely happy about our ideas.
