This year Wymondham College competed for the first time in the Royal Horticultural Society Budding Gardeners competition held at RHS Hyde Hall over half term.
The team was made up of Ellen Parfitt (Year 9), Madelene Hobbs (Year 8), William Smith (Year 7), accompanied by Mrs Davis and Mrs Smith the College’s Head Gardener.
The gardens were all on a ‘Sustainability’ theme and had to be contained within a 1m x 1m pallet. Over a dozen schools from across the East of England competed.
The team chose ‘Reduce Reuse Recycle’ as their theme, the aim being to make a garden entirely from what would otherwise end up on the rubbish dump. College staff spent some time rooting through rubbish heaps and found the materials for the amazing centrepiece - an old goldfish bowl and some left over plastic pipes - which converted into an unusual strawberry planter and wormery.
Use was also made of some old plastic crates to create the tiers, and more tubes to create planters in the corners, giving a variety of heights to the garden. To really hammer home the three Rs message they covered the plastic tubes in a collage of used drinks cans, crisp packets and magazines.
Plants were almost entirely produced by members of the team – flowers and foliage plants from Mrs Smith, plus vegetables, strawberry plants and herbs from the College allotment, with most plants having been grown from seed or cuttings, and Ellen Parfitt’s chives providing a nice fountain at the top of the strawberry tube. In the end we only needed a few trays of colourful flowers from the garden centre to finish our garden.
The team worked well under pressure and had the garden set up and planted within 45 minutes on the day! The team were thrilled to be given the coveted ‘Best in Show’ award.
Mrs Davis, commented “Well done to everyone involved in the creation of this year’s garden including the Technology department in the construction phase. We will be returning next year to defend our title!”
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