Tuesday 27 January 2015

A generous donation from Dobbies garden centre

More ice on the pond - one of the students enjoyed breaking the ice this morning by stamping on the surface.

We pulled a bit of ice out of the pond to see how thick it was.

We spotted a few bulbs starting to poke their way through the soil.

Dobbies garden centre  donated plants and some potting compost to our project.
http://www.dobbies.com/find-a-garden-centre/ponteland/
The student really enjoyed visiting the garden centre and choosing plants for our new sensory garden.

The sensory garden will be used by our students when they need somewhere quiet to sit and think, particularly if there has been a problem.  Our students will really benefit by having somewhere quiet and relaxing, to calm down, think and come up with a way of putting things right.
The students picked a couple of climbing roses to plant to grow up an archway which is being created over our garden gate.

The students picked lots of wavy grasses which will blow in the breeze.

There are a couple of lovely plants with bright red stems, which will look great even in the winter when there are no leaves.

We also had a trip to our local B&Q to buy some materials to build a roof on our hen run.  The tarpaulins are not substantial enough to withstand the gales we have been experiencing in the North east.  We have decided to put a permanent roof to stop the run becoming very boggy and unpleasant for the hens. Our Technology teacher has been helping out with lots of advice and a design.

The days are starting to get a little bit longer - the hens must have noticed this as they have started to lay more eggs.  Our Columbine hens, which lay the green/blue eggs stopped laying completely in December.

Signs of spring - some snowdrops starting to flower in a pot near our pond.

This is a bit of an experiment - we bought a rhubarb plant last year which we planted in a tub.  We thought that we would have a go at forced rhubarb and have put a bin over the top to see what happens?

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