Nursery World - Nursery activities (83)

Heather Gillies, manager of Glasgow's Clutha Street Day Nursery, which has an award-winning garden I got ideas for our Japanese garden by surfing the net. There are lots of excellent sites that show examples of gardens and give background information on how Japanese gardens evolved.

I got ideas for our Japanese garden by surfing the net. There are lots of excellent sites that show examples of gardens and give background information on how Japanese gardens evolved.

Japanese gardens aim to capture the spirit of nature and imitate its forms and are characterised by features such as bridges, ponds and rock arrangements. We wanted to create a sense of tranquillity in ours.

We painted the wall a calming blue. The children helped us clear a piece of land, which we covered with black plastic, to stop the weeds growing through, and placed stones on top. We made really effective benches from breeze blocks and planks of wood, left over from another project. We then painted the benches spruce blue and added Chinese characters (we couldn't find examples of Japanese writing, so we have an oriental garden rather than a Japanese one!).

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