From Shovel to Splash: The Making of Our Garden Pond

Pupils in our Wednesday Afternoon Activity Gardening Club have been working closely alongside our Eco Committee this term to install a fantastic pond, which will be an asset to our sustainability initiatives and will support new habitats within the garden.

The old pond was small and not fully formed. Pupils have taken on the challenge to dig out the perimeter of the pond, adding carpet and a pond liner, before filling it with water collected from their rainwater butts. They have then decorated the surroundings with logs and stones, harvested from around the school site. The club have been working alongside Mrs Thurlow and our Gardeners to learn new skills and the techniques for making the pond ready for tadpoles, birds and wildlife. The group have added space for habitats and access to the water.

In the spring, they hope to add marginal plants to the area to encourage more wildlife to use the space.

The gardening team are allocated a site to care for and maintain in front of Epworth House. In addition to the pond, they have been creating their own compost using coffee waste from the school site, attending to the polytunnel to prepare it for planting vegetables and adding blackthorn and hawthorn into the beds to create hedgerow refuge for birds and other wildlife.

Pupils are keen to develop the site further, providing shelter for birds and habitats for wildlife. They have kindly asked if anyone from our community has any of the following items that they can donate to the garden?

• Gnomes of any size and variety.
• Bird bath, ideally with a space for a perch
• Fairy doors
• Butterfly feeders
• Bird feeders: Hanging and free-standing (ideally with squirrel protection)
• Garden chairs (which are collapsible for storage)
• Garden Table (ideally collapsible for storage)
• In date seeds

Any donations from parents in our community are gratefully received, including used items that are no longer required at home. If you have anything suitable, please email a photograph and brief description to Mrs Thurlow: [email protected] and she will reply to advise if the item is suitable.

Congratulations to our Gardening Club for a very successful pond build, which they have worked on through rain, storms and frost in the unpredictable Cornish weather!