Last week saw the Glasgow Mid Week Group and the Paisley Green Gym at Garrowhill Primary School where we were working on a small area to create a compass themed garden.
When we arrived the area was very overgrown and the fruit trees and bushes were being strangled by the long grass.
It took a good amount of digging and a lot of wheelbarrow trips, by Sunday lunchtime we were nearly half way there.
At the end of Sunday we had almost cleared the whole area but thought it only fair to leave some for the volunteers to do on Monday.
The weather had improved on Monday (it had stopped snowing) so we were able to make good progress removing the remaining grass and we began to put in the wooden edging that would form the compass edge.
Once this was in place we dug in the centre of the compass (a large section of tree trunk) and covered the ground with mypex (weed suppressant fabric).
At this point the garden was beginning to take shape!
Tuesday saw us start on the wooden edging that would surround the whole garden. A trench was dug, the posts driven in and the boards levelled and kept in a straight a line as was possible given the wandering footpath surrounding the garden.
While the edging was going in around the garden the boards that would form the compass points were also being put in, at the end of Tuesday things were starting to look a lot tidier.
Wednesday brought yet more snow and this time it stuck! But we were on a schedule and needed to dig some posts in.
Thursday was a very busy day, we had a whole lot of pebbles to spread and also a trailer load of woodchip to get down. We were ably assisted by a class of 25 P4/5’s and although at times it seemed like organised chaos all the pebbles ended up where they needed to be! By the end of Thursday there was a HUGE difference to the garden.
Our last day on site was to finish off the bug hotels/bird feeders and to fix the sundial in position.
The whole school were delighted with how we’d transformed the garden and they are looking forward to using the compass to learn direction, fractions, angles and peering into the bug hotels to see who’s moved in.
