Plus wellbeing resources, training courses and more!
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Gardening for a greener world
Caring for the environment is everyone's responsibility. By taking small steps to create a green space with your group, you'll be making a big difference - welcoming wildlife into your garden and learning about how plants support our Earth's ecosystem.
Going green can be as simple as changing our individual choices and there's no better time to start reusing household and garden items than Recycle Week (20 September - 26 September). To support you across the week, we've highlighted some fun and creative activities to help make your garden even greener!
Recycled garden apron
Put your leftover compost bags to good use by making a protective apron. Why not challenge your group to come up with the most creative art design?
Milk bottle watering can
Milk bottles are great items to turn into watering cans - smaller bottles work well for younger pupils, with larger bottles saving refill time for bigger gardens.
Newspaper plant pots
Newspaper pots are cheap to make and better for the environment than plastic, but be careful when watering your seedlings so the paper doesn't rot.
Supporting wellbeing through the outdoors
Whether you have a full garden or a green windowsill, caring for plants can reduce stress and anxiety, increase social experiences and improve your mental health and wellbeing. With COVID-19 changing so much for us all, spending time outdoors is a great way to ensure stability for young people and introduce them to the many health benefits gardening has to offer.
We've put together three wellbeing activities that can be used to explore your outdoor areas and discover the healing power of plants.
Art in the garden
Collect natural items, leaves or flowers from your garden and use them to create unique pieces of art, or use a famous artist as inspiration.
How plants can heal
Many plants were originally grown for their medicinal benefits, such as coriander and peppermint. Learn more about the healing plants growing in your garden!
Plant poetry
Explore the shapes, colours, sounds and smells in your garden as inspiration to create a poem about the benefits of spending time in nature.
New training courses now available!
We're delighted to announce that we will be running face-to-face training courses across our RHS gardens in October.
Our 'A Year in Your Gardening Club' one-day course supports you to keep your gardening club flourishing all year. During the course, you'll learn basic horticultural skills around soil preparation, sowing, plant establishment, maintenance and more from our RHS experts.
Places on the course are limited, so book yours now!
Gardening jobs for September
This month, you can harvest fruit and veg like runner beans, onions or apples. You can also start planting spring flowering bulbs such as daffodils or snowdrops.
Share your stories!
We're looking for stories from school groups across the UK to help inspire others to get gardening! If you've got top tips to grow tomatoes, a veg plot to be proud of, or innovative way to make gardening inclusive let us know! No project is too big or small, and we'd love to speak to you to learn more about how you started out and your future plans.
You can send your stories to us via email at schoolgardening@rhs.org.uk, or message us on Facebook and Twitter.
