GREEN-FINGERED children from Alton County Infants School have been celebrating a real coup - they have been invited to exhibit a garden at the prestigious Hampton Court Flower Show. They will be among the youngest exhibitors and they will be constructing their garden on a restricted budget, but they are going for gold! Entered in the small garden section, their exhibit has been designed by members of the school's 10-strong gardening committee, incorporating ideas from their own garden at school. Based on the theme of "Learning to Look After Our World" as a "Garden for Education" it will embrace the key principles of recycling, composting, collecting water and organic gardening. In school, the garden is multifunctional, being used as a cross-curricular teaching area for science and technology, art and design, orienteering, geography, maths and games. Every one of the 150 infants at the school has an input, with gardening sessions led by site manager Derek Burgess, and teacher Ann Foulkes. Each of the school's six classes has its own decorated plant containers and bulb pots, and all the children will be involved in producing the garden for Hampton Court. They will, for example, be designing and making tile-mosaic stepping stones, and last week they planted enough runner beans and sweet peas to ensure a good supply of healthy plants for Hampton Court. Because the show garden will be restricted to a four by six-metre plot, it cannot incorporate everything from school, but it will include such features as a wild pond area with a stream and a pump will be used to circulate water which will then be used to water the garden. The pond will be flanked by a sensory area of herbs and other sweet-smelling plants, designed to engage all five senses. While the children will not be allowed on site during the two-week construction of the garden, due to health and safety rules, they will be manning the exhibit and will be eager to explain the thinking behind the design and the ethos of the "Garden for Education". The garden itself will be constructed by staff and parents, many of whom have volunteered their time and/or resources to help with the project. It is an exciting time for the gardening committee. An "able" group of six and seven year olds drawn from year two infants, who are encouraged to solve "real-world problems" by undertaking projects like this, they had the job of designing the exhibit, marking it out in the playground and using graph paper and cut-out shapes to help in their work. Sarah Harvey, an ex-parent and garden designer then drew up professional plans to send to the Hampton Court Flower Show committee. According to Mrs Foulkes, the plans were submitted in November last year and the children have just found out that they have been accepted. The committee's next job is to organise a timetable and to design "Learning to Look After Our World" leaflets, to hand out at the show. They also need to start raising funds to pay for the garden. Although the children will grow many of their own plants and will use recycled materials and volunteer help, money will be needed for example to purchase hardy perennials which they cannot grow in time. Letters are currently being prepared inviting sponsorship, the idea being to encourage the community to get involved with the project. Having attended an RHS meeting in Birmingham to find out exactly what is expected of exhibitors, Mrs Foulkes said that while the professionals expect to spend £300,000 on exhibiting at Hampton Court, the smaller gardens are thought to cost around £30,000. Because the children at Alton County Infants School believe in recycling and self-help, they are looking to raise in the region of £3,000 to 4,000. "We are trying to do this as cheaply as possible because, like the school garden, we do not have a budget for it - we rely on recycling, the generosity of the local community and on the help of parents and children," said Mrs Foulkes. "We are just so thrilled to have our entry accepted. We have already won a prize by taking our garden to Hampton Court. Anything else will be a bonus!" Hampton Court Flower Show will be open to the public from Tuesday, July 3, until Sunday, July 8.
