Garden patch school digs in

THE Patch Primary School last week got a helping hand to keep its award-winning garden green. Late last year the school took out a state prize for the ever-growing garden.
Last Sunday, 2 May, it hosted a working bee to begin a new large rock garden, build a tank stand for its eco centre, prepare a site for a plant propagation facility and have a general clean up.
The Patch won the Victorian Schools’ Garden Awards Best School Garden plaque and prize money at a Royal Botanic Gardens ceremony on 2 December.
Environment educator Michelle Rayner said it was “thrilling”.
“It acknowledges all the hard work and effort undertaken by our students and community in designing, creating, managing and continually developing our large school garden,” she said.
Ms Rayner said the garden embodied many principles of sustainable living through low-water use plants, mulch, compost, worm farms, indigenous plants and more.
“While the garden is still under development and we have many years of serious landscaping and horticultural activities to do, the aesthetics and design of what we have created so far have broad appeal and exude an atmosphere that is wholesome, inspirational and restorative,” she said.
“Our students have learnt, and will continue to learn, so much from the activities the garden provides, from numeracy, literacy, science, design and technology and sustainability to the incorporation of the performing and visual arts, physical education and social development.”
Ms Rayner said students collected seeds, incubated eggs, cared for animals, monitored the weather and more.
“The list is endless but the opportunities are steeped in real-life tasks that are responsible and respectful, and that is what is necessary to develop young people with the attributes to enable them to live responsibly with less impact on the planet and a great respect for all life,” she said.