RHS Malvern Spring Festival Showcases Magical ‘Secret Garden’
What an amazing weekend at the RHS Malvern Spring Festival! The weather was fantastic and the transformation of a piece of grass into a ‘Secret Garden’ was, in a word, awesome!
During Thursday lunchtimes over the last six months, members of the RGS Gardening Club have been working hard to design and ready plants for their garden at the show. They also had to create a vlog to support their work and show their involvement. This was put together and edited by Year Seven pupils Sophie Maggs and Daisy Mees.
The theme for this year’s garden was ‘bring your favourite book to life’. The book chosen was “The Secret Garden” as nominated by our pastoral secretary Margaret Sturdy who also works very closely with our charity committee. This was one of Margaret’s favourite books as a child.
With the amazing Design and Technology department, the gardeners built a full-size wall with an automatic opening door which is activated by finding the special key. Further items of note included metal sculptures of a squirrel and a pheasant made by Pru Goodison and Roxanne Freely. Pru also carved the iconic robin which features heavily in the book. With the assistance of our Art department, Tom McElhannan designed and made a clay 3D face impression inspired by a green man.
Plants had to be grown, some from cuttings or seed and others carefully chosen; all to reflect those described in the secret garden. There were tulips, sweet alyssum, hostas, grasses, bamboo, iris, strawberries, lettuce, herbs as well as more ornamental plants.
With the help of parents and siblings and the expertise of Mr Holt, Mrs Daniel, Mr Boss, Mr Batchelder Mrs Bousfield and Mrs Appleby, the garden came to life over the May Bank holiday weekend in preparation for the show. This involved putting in place the structure, the water feature, plants and different creative elements such as a garden bench, bird box, mason bee house, hedgehog house and of course the secret key.
The garden was visited by thousands of people over the four days of the festival. The gardeners worked hard presenting their ideas and pointing out the different elements to visitors; several of them balancing other commitments, not the least of which was revision for the end of year examinations.
It was a magical garden which by the Monday lunchtime following the end of the show, had disappeared as if by magic! However, the garden took an enormous amount of hard work: the design and creation of detailed artistic plans, growing many of the edible plants from cuttings or seed, selecting other plants, building the structure, learning the history behind the story and creating a vlog.
The gardeners can now take a well-deserved rest, hopefully enjoying their own gardens. They are a creative and enthusiastic group, who are a real credit to the school and their parents. They were fantastic ambassadors for the school and I thoroughly enjoyed working with them on this wonderful garden.
Mr Holt, Teacher of Design & Technology
