The weather was dry this afternoon for dragonfly class, this was to be the first time this term that the children had come out to do” Green Fingers garden club”, the children were very excited.
Marley, Jack, Fi and Myleigh put on their wellie boots and we then went into the learning garden to find the box of gloves, the children had fun putting these on, and managed it well.
I talked to this group about how to hold and use the gardening tools safely, this afternoon we were going to be using trowels. I had made some holes in the old water trough from their decking, (we like to re-cycle items), and so this was going to make a super planter, which was at the correct height for the dragonfly children to use.
They had to mix garden soil, compost and sand in the wheel barrow, then the trough was half filled with the mixture, now for the planting firstly the group planted mixed daffodil bulbs, making a deep hole to pop these in the right way up, then some orange tulip bulbs went in not quite so deep and the children covered these over.
Finally the children planted out some beautiful frilled snap dragons to give some autumn colour, the group had time to explore the learning garden before joining P.E, this group all received a dojo point as for first time gardeners they did very well!
Oli, Amelia and a few more of their friends, put on their wellies and came to join me out in the learning garden, they too, had a safety talk about using different tools out in the garden. Very quickly these children put on gloves and helped me carry some trays of plants over to their planting trough, we just had to add a few more bulbs and some more colour.
Amelia and Oli and Dominic planted purple crocus called “firefly”, whilst the other children planted up violas called” magic”, these little pansy flowers were bright and cheerful, then the large trough was filled with the rest of the compost mixture and the plants were watered, Amelia was in charge of this!
Moving onto perennial plants which are good for bees and hoverflies, the children planted some new flowering plants into two of the raised wooden beds, .one of the plants being a large yellow daisy type flower then a yellow potentilla, a blue campanula and a pink hardy geranium, all of these will be filled with pollen in the spring to attract the bees, the group watered these well. I showed this group how to clean of and put away the trowels and their gloves, we had a lovely time out in the learning garden, and there are certainly a few green fingered gardeners in the making.
