GREEN fingered pupils at Holy Trinity Primary School in Weymouth have received the ultimate accolade for their work outside.
This coming weekend their garden will be open to the public – the only school garden in the South West to be opening for the National Garden Scheme.
The school garden was started four years ago on an overgrown plot of land near the new school, with the donation of the Edible Garden, which was the Best in Show Garden from the 2008 Hampton Court Flower Show.
The show garden arrived on pallets on the back of a lorry and a space was cleared and work began to rebuild the garden. School governor Helen Toft said: “The Edible Garden was just the start of a wonderful journey to development with the help of the children, a large plot to provide not only 19 class beds for growing plants but also an environment for teaching many subjects from maths to art, science to music.
“In the past three years we have planted a very large willow classroom with willow donated by Abbotsbury Swannery, where the willow was traditionally grown for weaving baskets to put cygnets in.
“We have also created a large wildlife pond with a dipping platform with money from the National Lottery and a grant from the local Holy Trinity Church went towards developing a quite memory corner with wood carvings and scented plants.”
Last year saw the installation of an Anderson shelter, relocated from a Weymouth garden, to provide the focus for the Second World War garden.
In addition, last year the school also won the Dorset Wildlife Trust, Wildlife Garden Award in the school and community category.
New for 2012 is a bird hide overlooking the bird garden area and back in April the Royal Engineers and Air Force Special Guard from the US installed a large tank for a composting toilet.
Helen added: “The next area will be a dinosaur garden.”
Holy Trinity School is in Cross Road, Weymouth and will be open on July 21 and 22 from 1pm to 5pm.
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