Four members of our Junior Gardening Club travelled to the Whitworth Art Gallery today to present our ideas for our forthcoming show garden at the RHS Flower Show at Tatton Park in the summer. Our creature was the lacewing. Did you know that adult lacewings court each other by vibrating their abdomens to produce an ultra low frequency ‘song’ – hence our musical backdrop to our garden, themed around Stevie Wonder’s “I just called to say I love you.” Our door is going to be the shape of the wing, but done in stained glass, as this is what it reminded one of our children of. Our colour themes are purples and white, common colours of plants for pollinators, of which we hope to grow many.
As well as presenting our ideas (extremely well, let it be said – the children were super!), our children participated in a number of workshops and activities. We made plant pots from recycled newspaper and planted them with calendula and peas; we made origami butterflies; we went on a bug safari, hunting insect species (did you know there could be up to 2200 different varieties in your garden?); we classified different butterflies and moths, bees and wasps, flies and beetles.
The hard work starts now with our planting, which will culminate with the show in July. Watch this space to see our progress…
What an exciting project, well done gardeners, I will look forward to the updates and of course the finished garden.
What an exciting day you all had. I look forward to seeing the finished garden. Well done to everyone involved!