So - when our School Judges were out and about, they visited Pond Meadow School in Guildford.
All the children who attend Pond Meadow have special needs, and therefore their garden is extremely important to them and forms part of the curriculum. They have a small allotment and a garden. However, due to lack of resources, they don't have the money for plants so it wasn't looking its best.
One of our judges said she would endeavour to get some donations from local companies to help them, and told other members of Team GIB what she was doing.
Fast forward to a week ago. We got a message from Paul Stacey - a friend and long term supporter of #Guildfordinbloom. He had been working on the #IconicHorticulturalHeroGarden at RHS Hampton Court Festival by Sarah Eberle asking if anyone on TeamGIB knew of a deserving place for the plants to go when the show ended! Well - that was an easy one! Especially when we found out that lots of the plants are scented herbs which will provide a sensory experience for the children.
So pretty much as I write this, staff from Pond Meadow School are at Hampton Cour collecting the plants to take them back to the school.
If anyone has any spare large pots - these would come in handy, and donations of compost also very welcome. They will be full on working this week (yes we know- hottest week of the year - sorry about that) to get them all planted.
So - all we have done is facilitate this - but it feels good to play a part in ensuring the plants go to such an extremely worthy cause in #Guildford.
The #IconicHorticulturalHeroGarden can be seen in the pictures. Thank you Sarah Eberle and team
for such a generous donation that will mean so very much to these children and their teachers.