Clouds: Literal and Virtual

It may feel like November but the garden is drinking up the Spring rain and the plants are growing at beanstalk-speed. When the sun comes out we'll take some more pictures and get them posted. We've been able to make some plans for artwork too and we're waiting for a specialist playground company to design us a stepping stone trail for the garden pathways. If the rain ever stops we might be able to get that done before the Summer holidays. We've also been tinkering around on the internet and experimenting with Word Clouds (jumbles of related words turned into patterns and pictures). Here's the Eco-Garden word cloud made up of words from this very blog. 

Spring 2012

The garden is thriving. In March, the willow tunnel burst into leaf and we had a triumphant display of daffodils thanks to the planting efforts of our infants one year ago.

In April, we saw the results of a (brief) spell of warm weather with another flurry of growth. We're now looking into the cost of playground floor markings to bring even more colour and fun into the garden. Watch this space for updates.

And for now, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Phase 2 Part 2: More Big Stuff

In November, Earthcalling came back to finish the garden. A small mountain of timber, 6 tonnes of topsoil, 20 meters of willow and 2 tonnes of bark chippings had to be knocked into shape in 4 days.
With the help of Prince's charity, Scottish Business in the Community and a small team of very hardworking volunteers who'd escaped from Lloyds Banking Group for the day and were rewarded only with soup and rolls, we shifted the raw materials into place and the garden was completed.
The planting was done by the children, the flowerpots and Belfast sink were donated by local firm Woods Roofing and the arty flourishes were done by Gus from Earthcalling.
We love the end result.

Lloyds Banking Group volunteer grafters

Work in progress

Willow before

Willow tunnel after

The stage takes shape

Gus and Laura from Earth Calling

Willow in the rain

Wet garden

Wet garden 2

Wet garden 3

Stage

Phase 2 Part 1: Big Stuff

After the Summer break we got the cheque book out and ordered trim trail for both playgrounds, benches, planters, willow tunnels, a stage and soft surfacing not to mention a forest of plants. More funding was found from community based funding streams and we packed even more supermarket bags to raise the last amount we needed for completion of the garden. A new school calendar was produced and plans were put in place for another Christmas fair. But there was still very little to show for the monumental fundraising efforts. People were asking what we'd spent the money on and why they could see no evidence of it. They did have a point.

Finally, in October 2011, one year after we'd first started on this path, the trim trail, giant chalk boards and benches arrived. A team of playgroud specialists installed them over the course of a wet and windy week. By the end of that week we had monkey bars, stepping stones, traverse walls, balance beams a wobbly bridge, forest climbing posts and several square metres of super squashy safety surfacing. The children were thrilled and the parents were starting to see what their efforts had been for.

Holes

Work in progress

Stepping Stones

Summer Fruits

After the heady excitement of the Fair and the elation of our funding success we had one final hurdle to cross before the Summer holidays, the Eco-Schools Green Flag assessment. Most of the hard work had been done by the children and staff throughout the year but the garden was coming into bloom at just the right time and helped win the school a prestigious third Green Flag. How cool is that?!
We spent the Summer nurturing the garden. There wasn't a whole lot of sunshine but neither was there much rain so we watered the garden and kept down the weeds and it started to reward us. First there was the satisfaction of watching the plants thrive. We even grew a single peach!

The Giant Peach

Watering the Giant Peach

Then there was the deeper satisfaction of  seeing the local children riding their bikes, helping with the gardening, reading their books and just playing together in the space. And of course, we as parents were spending time there when we wouldn't  have done before the garden began.
We also had time to think about Phase 2. Now we could afford to buy the play equipment and finish the garden. It hadn't seemed possible at the start, but we'd smashed our £10,000 target out of the park. With proceeds from the fair and the Big Lottery money, as well as the small fundraising events interspersed through the year, we'd raised £20,000. Wow.

Climbing and Jumping

The garden was now growing. We couldn't really see anything happening but underneath the soil things were taking root without our help so we turned our attention to the next phase of developing the playground. Despite exceeding our personal expectations and confounding the sceptics, at this point we still hadn't reached our £10,000 target and it had become apparent that even if we did, we wouldn't have enough money to finish the garden and build the play equipment the children had been so excited about. We also felt we had a community obligation to develop the school grounds for all the people who used it outside of school hours. It was time to be a little more ambitious. So, we decided to go for broke by holding a Summer Fair (outside, in June, in Scotland) and applying for £10,000 from the Big Lottery Fund: Awards for All Scotland. 
The application process was long and tough and it was obvious the Big Lottery Fund would need to be convinced by our proposal and its benefits for the community.  After a few false starts we managed to put a feasible submission together and sent it away to be judged.
In the meantime we planned the Summer Fair and prayed for sunshine. Bouncy castles were ordered, bunting was strung, baking was baked and stalls were pitched. Hook-a-Duck, Roll-a-penny, Splat-the-Rat and Lucky Dips were set up alongside face-painting and tombolas. On the morning of the fair we woke up to blue skies and a fair wind. Lothian and Borders Police arrived with their community football pitch to universal acclaim and a crew from Marionville Fire Station turned up in the shiniest red fire engine to the delight of every child at the fair. Teachers and parents helped out with everything, which was fantastic, and the fair, which was free to everyone and open to the whole community, was a huge success. That day was the icing on the cake of an amazing year for Hermitage Park.

Now, if you believe in fate or just lucky coincidences you won't be surprised to hear that we received a letter on the very morning of the fair which made everything we'd done seem worthwhile. The Big Lottery Fund had awarded us the full amount of £10,000. Opening that envelope was beyond nerve-wracking and the euphoria that followed was unbelievable. You can say what you like about Royal Mail but their timing that day was impeccable.

How Does Your Garden Grow

There were other funding successes too in those early months. Coffee mornings, a Halloween disco and a bag pack at Sainsburys all helped to swell the coffers, thanks as ever to support from children, parents and school staff. There were other demands on our funds too, like a nursery Smartboard, sports equipment and school trips. But the playground was always our first priority and in March 2011 the first stage of the garden finally got underway.
Working with a unique environmental education organisation called Earth Calling we began the first phase of re-developing the top corner of the infant playground. The plan for this early work was to create a collection of raised beds filled with wildlife friendly and food producing native plants. Two of the beds would eventually be planted up with a living willow tunnel and one corner of the site would be home to a raised stage area for play and outdoor learning. As it was right beside the nursery garden which was filled with greenery and bursting with life and colour, this section of the playground seemed especially grey and featureless....but not for much longer.

The work took four days, cost just over £1,000 and resulted in four large raised beds planted up with fruit trees, herbs and flowering shrubs. In the willow beds children from P2 and P3 planted Clematis and Jasmine which would eventually climb through the willow and provide colour and scent throughout the year. The children also planted more than 100 Spring bulbs and a number of tiny saplings grown from seed by the infant gardening club. It was just a small beginning but mighty oaks come from tiny acorns. How apt.

Day one: The raised beds are built

Peach Tree

Digging

It looks like a garden

Lavender

Mixed native herbs

Helpers

Green Fingers

The frames for the willow