Steve Fry – The Gardens Group
What does being an Ambassador mean to you?
The ambassador role is a great compliment to environmental and community projects that are part of my day to day job within the Gardens Group. The Cultivation Street Ambassador scheme allows me to give away even more goodies and helps the groups that I work with maintain their momentum throughout the growing season.
One of my favourite projects...
Already this year we have seen classes most of our regular primary schools, who come in to plant up individual pots to grow on – sometimes in school and sometimes at home.
One of my favourite projects so far this year was an opportunity to work with Thornford Primary School. Over the last 12 months I have been to visit several times to help them put together a successful bid for money from the Tesco bags of help scheme.
The funds were used to buy heavily discounted plants from the garden centre and we were able to add free compost, seeds and mulch to this. After a couple of false starts, the school was able to arrange for some parent helpers to meet me for a planting day and once the plants had been laid out (and many of the holes dug) we were joined by a class of very young gardeners to finish the planting.
Why these projects are valuable!
Amongst the positive conversations during and after the planting, there were two points that really brought home the value of this kind of project.
- First was a discussion about the longevity of the project – the children planting these shrubs would be able to bring their own children back in years to come, just like one of the parent helpers who remembered doing something similar with a tree at her own primary school.
- The second ‘win’ in my book was hearing one of the parent helpers being recruited into supporting the school’s thriving gardening club.
As part of the Gardens Group have worked with Thornford Primary School over many years and I hope this will l long continue. It will be fantastic to see their many garden projects continue to develop and mature.
Plans and projects for the future
I am hoping to introduce a parallel scheme called Gold Club Schools. This would bring together all of the wonderful things we currently do for school groups and enable us to add appropriate seasonal vouchers for each pupil (to encourage them to grow e.g. herbs at home) in addition to the regular discount the schools have for any purchases from us.
Accompanying these would be a monthly term-time newsletter aimed at supporting the staff with ideas for projects, reminders about what needs doing this month, examples from wildlife gardens, raised beds and sensory gardens and of course special offers and giveaways.
I am also particularly keen on the development of edible hedges. Not just the really basic and obvious edibles but some of the quirkier things too.
What would you like to see in your area from community and school gardening?
My leaflet on recipes using Fuchsias in the kitchen is one of the most popular downloads from the Gardens Group website. Enough fruit to share with the world – and not just people, birds and other wildlife also benefit. It is a great teaching opportunity – I like to talk about the habitat opportunities for wildlife, the life cycle of the plant from seed onwards, different pollination strategies and consider how many different species of pollinator might benefit from a careful mix of plants to provide a long productive season.
It would be wonderful if more projects took up my offer of a moth survey alongside this. It is two-day process as we look at caterpillars, food plants and life cycles on the day we set the moth trap up and then the following morning we have a wonderful time identifying and releasing all the different species that came to visit the light overnight.
Do you have any quick tips for other Ambassadors on how to engage with schools and communities?
Keep an eye on local magazines and newspapers. I was able to connect with our local Transition Town movement this way, as well as discover one of our local nature reserve support groups looking for a little boost.