A couple of issues ago I wrote about how the introduction of the vegetable growing area had opened up so many new windows for everyone at Haworth Primary School. The development of the nature garden had the same enormous impact, especially on the amount of curriculum work that can be done in such an environment.

Once again we started with a small area at the side of the school. It is so important not to over face everyone with the size of the task, taking all the pleasure out of the project and not giving the children ownership of it. We put a small pond half way down the new nature garden. Ours was a plastic moulded pond, so we put grass right up to the edges so that the plastic couldn’t be seen. At first everyone frowns when you mention water and ponds in a school garden, but once again I feel there is a safe way of doing everything. Obviously if it is a large pond consideration has to be given to fencing the area in and having a gate that only designated people have a key to. In our case we put layers of stones in the way of 2 bricks with a flat stone across the top. We built these up until the last one just below the water. As well as making this a child safe pond it also gives the frogs lots of layers to hide under when they are feeling threatened.

During the first spring frogs came and made the pond their home laying their spawn and we soon had about a dozen frogs in residence. The nursery did a projecton the lifecycle of the frog and having the facility in their own school grounds made it a lot easier and much more fun.We then put a seat at the side of the pond and planted buddleias at each side of it to attract thebutterflies. We let the wild nettles grow behind thes eat, which also attract the butterflies but yet were in an area where the small children weren’t going to get stung.

This has made a really peaceful area for the children to sit and watch the frogs and butterflies at break and lunchtimes, or to carry out their curriculum work. We have numerous log piles throughout the nature garden. These make a brilliant home for all the insects and mini-beasts and are brilliant areas for classes to do lots more curriculum work. They are also brilliant for attracting hedgehogs into the school garden, which together with the frogs make a wonderful organic control for all those juicy slugs that run riot throughout the garden. These insects and animals in the school garden are so important and form what is called an ecosystem. Each animal and plant has a part to play in making your garden work and they all rely on each other to stay healthy and well.

This is another good reason to be organic and avoid using pesticides which kill more of the things you don’t want to than the ones you do. We then put nesting boxes up in the trees in and around the nature garden and bat boxes under the school guttering that faces onto the garden. We put a bird table at the side of the seat and one at the bottom of the garden which the children keep topped up with fat balls and wild bird seed. This really attracts the birds to the nature garden and encourages them to use the nesting boxes and make it their home. It is important not to put the feeding stations too near the nesting as this can encourage visiting birds to attack the birds living in the boxes. You can get small cameras to put in the nesting boxes that enable the children to watch every step from the birds building their nests right through to their fledglings leaving the nest. Once again having all these birds in your school garden is a brilliant organic method of getting rid of lots of unwanted pests like slugs, greenfly etc.

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