This week saw lots of busy diggers in the grounds of Dalbeattie Primary School thanks to a bunch of hardworking volunteers who helped complete the final part of a project which was started in the spring. Dalbeattie Primary has fantastic areas for outdoor learning but the task of filling our 11 very large planters with plant stock for the first time was no little task. As the school also has a large allotment area with raised beds and a polytunnel for growing vegetables, it was decided to stock the 11 class planters with herbaceous plants which the children can weed and tend to over the years to come. However, such plants can be expensive so Dalbeattie Rotary Club of Dalbeattie came to the rescue with a fund of £750 to finance an initial order after the club was contacted by the school’s Eco Group. Also crucial to the project’s success has been the generous help and advice of Dumfries and Galloway Grounds staff Caroline McLachlan and Brian McAvennie. Brian very kindly offered to take delivery of our plants back in April and, with his dedicated team, has potted them up and cared for them all summer so that they would be better established for us to plant out in the autumn. Last Monday, the plants arrived back. It was amazing to see the size they had grown to; we are so grateful because with the summer we had, we would surely have lost the majority of the young plants without Brian’s help. Meanwhile, parent volunteers carried out the heavy work of weeding and digging over the planters before progressing to planting out. We are also very grateful to Wilkos in Castle Douglas for 10 bags of free compost and to BSW Timber who will be supplying us with bark. It’s been a busy week but the school is so grateful to our team of trusty volunteers: Andy Kalotka, Mr McMorran, Alison Houston, Simon Mein, Susan Robertson, Fiona Anderson, Ruaridh Benson, Laura Dickie, John Boynton, Fran Drummond, Lee Maxwell, Emma McGuire, Pamela Caldow, Victoria Cameron and Gayle Cooper. Thank you all!