Isle of Gigha School and Community are very proud to announce that Bailey Bannatyne’s Gigha Garden, inspired by our beautiful island has won the My Favourite Pocket Garden Award at Gardening Scotland 2017!
Visitors who voted convincingly for Bailey’s design were entertained and inspired by her creativity and attention to detail. They especially enjoyed how the garden encapsulated the children’s love for their island and its beautiful natural heritage.
Bailey’s Garden was one of 4 entries from the school for the One Planet Picnic Pocket Gardens 2017 competition run by environmental charity Keep Scotland Beautiful. KSB’s competition was a great opportunity to celebrate Scotland’s Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology programme through investigating our natural heritage and challenging our students to imagine, design, create, grow and eat in the outdoors.
The brief from KSB also encouraged students to build eco-literacy skills through developing innovative design solutions to how we can increase biodiversity in our neighbourhoods, improve our ability to reduce, reuse, recycle and become more skilled in growing our own food.
“My dad and I went for a walk around the Isle of Gigha and saw so many different flowers. I wanted to make a garden that was a map of that so I went home and we decided on the plan. On my plan I put these things: Watercress for the golf course, Azaleas for Achamore Gardens, Lavender for the purple flowers that bees on Gigha love, collected sand and rocks for our beautiful beaches, driftwood for the Giants Tooth, a mini King Palm tree, flowers of the sea, mixed herbs and grass for our cows to make lovely creamy milk and painted stones for the houses and buildings”
– BB
Bailey’s garden is currently being reconstructed here on Gigha, as part of our School Gardening Projects. These projects include new Veg Pallet Gardens (including 3 more One Planet Picnic Gardens) and The BEE WILD! project; a micro restoration project on the school grounds facilitated in partnership with Amy Wilson Arts and supported by Grow Wild, Kew Gardens and the Big Lottery Fund.
