Keep Scotland Beautiful pocket garden competition: Rosneath Primary's high hopes

As reported by the Advertiser last week, the school was selected as one of two Argyll and Bute winners in Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Pocket Garden design competition.

Entrants were asked to develop environmentally friendly designs for a tiny garden which tells a story, to reflect the themes of the 2022 Year of Stories, One Planet Picnic and Wildlife Gardening.

A total of 340 entries were received, with 45 being chosen from schools across the country for a spot in a digital showcase – in which a public vote will take place to select the overall winner.

The Rosneath pupils, from the school’s P5/6 class celebrated the story of The Jungle Book in their design, asking people to look for the ‘bare necessities’ and their favourite characters in the colourful garden.

The Rosneath pupils' design

The school’s head teacher, Emma McDermid, told the Advertiser this week: “We were delighted to be selected as a winner. We are now beginning our adventure to build and grow our garden design.

“A Pocket Garden is a miniature garden that uses edible plants, plants that attract wildlife, and that reuses something which would otherwise have been thrown away.

“The 2022 One Planet Picnic Pocket Garden Competition builds on this, linking garden designs, sustainability and the 2022 Year of Stories. Each pupil in Primary 5/6 rose to the challenge of planning and creating their own designs; containing edible plants, recycled materials and depicting their favourite story.

“Pupils then voted on their favourite designs. The winning design was a depiction of ‘The Jungle Book’.

“Together the children then evaluated their entry design and agreed to make further alterations by including an idea from every child’s design, such as plant, habitat or material.

Pupils voted for their favourite individual entry among ideas from the whole class

“The class organised a very successful enterprise jumble sale to raise funds for the project and establish a ‘Garden Centre’. Pupils decided to share their enterprise donations by gifting all classes and nursery children a voucher to spend on their garden grounds for wildlife.

“The children were motivated to get involved as they all collaborated into the overall design. They worked in groups to identify plants which would be edible to humans and also those which would attract wildlife, sharing knowledge and utilising technology to research.

"The children have developed an increased awareness of biodiversity and in particular what they can do to boost this within our school community grounds and at home in their own gardens.

"Pupils had to select materials from a sustainable source - reusing as much as possible and ensuring compost is peat free. The children related this to prior knowledge from learning about climate change studies and the role of carbon.

“We are now very excited to begin building and growing our design.”

Now it's time to turn the design into a reality

Among the comments made by pupils at the school on learning of their success, one said “it’s going to be amazing for us and wildlife”.

Another added: “I like it because when you look at it there’s lots of things to look at.” 

And a third said: “I like the design a lot because it looks really cool. I’m looking forward to building it because it will attract wildlife.”

Pupils from Small Isles Primary on the island of Jura were also chosen among the winners after they retold a famous story with a twist, in their ‘Fantastic Bees and Where to Find Them’ design.

The winning Pocket Gardens will be available to view in the digital showcase at keepscotlandbeautiful.org/pocketgarden from Wednesday, June 8, and voting will be open until June 20.