Discover how a nursery garden can be much more than a little green space for a few plants, as Barbara Millar visits two innovative sites
Heather Gillies will cheerfully accept help from any quarter. In creating the award-winning garden at the Clutha Street Nursery, Glasgow, where she is head, Heather has roped in parents, staff's partners, local schools and community groups, the Prince's Trust, neighbouring businesses and the children themselves. But she pays the greatest tribute to her staff. 'Without them, none of this would have been possible,' she says.
Located just a short walk from a traffic-choked main route into Glasgow and surrounded by dusty sandstone tenements, the nursery garden provides a welcome splash of colour to the neighbourhood.
Five years ago, when the hard work started, the grounds at the 50-place local authority nursery - once home to a tram depot canteen - consisted of nothing but a large stretch of grass and a plain concrete area.
An application for funds from the BBC Children in Need appeal provided cash to create pathways through the grassy area. 'It can be very wet in Glasgow and the grass took a long time to dry out, so before we had the pathways, children were regularly confined to playing on the concrete,' Heather explains. Once the paths had been laid and decorated with colourful motifs, other ideas took shape.
Limited funds were available from the council. For 26 years Glasgow City Council has run the Rosebowl competition, an environment- improving scheme open to local nurseries and primary schools. Entrants receive around 200 from Land Services, to help with their project, plus two half-days of advice and assistance from Scottish Natural Heritage and other environmentalists.
Clutha Street Nursery has entered the competition for the past five years, each year using the money to add more to the garden. 'We started off with a rockery and then added car-tyre towers in which we planted carrots, leeks and spring onions,' says Heather. 'Soon after that we created a herb garden and a strawberry patch.' Decking and plants were added, courtesy of a gift from the local B&Q store. Then came an insect garden, a make-believe pond and waterfall, a train, complete with station platform, a chalkboard, a boat and a butterfly garden.
Last year, when the nursery won the coveted Rosebowl trophy, its efforts had been completed with a sensory garden for the under-twos, a mini racetrack for bikes and an Oriental garden with bamboo, corkscrew hazel, Japanese acers and windchimes. This year the nursery was runner-up.
'We could never have done this alone,' says Heather. 'We have had a great deal of help from different people and organisations and the children are really able to benefit from their hard work. Whenever it is dry I like to have the children outside. We can cover the whole curriculum out here.'
Children are involved with planting and tending the flowers, shrubs, herbs, vegetables and fruit. This year they helped to 'grow' their own butterflies, watching the stages of development and finally releasing the adults into the butterfly garden, complete with special plants to attract them.
They can observe the various insects, play on the train, listen to stories and songs in the boat, enjoy the tranquillity of the Oriental garden and touch and smell the plants in the sensory garden.
'All of this provides a wonderful learning opportunity for all our children, from babies to five-year-olds,' says Heather. 'It is also important for their health, to be outside as much as possible. Many of the children live in high-rise or tenement flats without access to a garden, and working parents seldom have the time to take them to the park on a regular basis. Also, so many travel here by car, bus or underground, it is good for them to get some exercise out of doors.'
The garden has been hit by vandals on several occasions , however. Recently they damaged a pergola, uprooted some vegetables and stole the strawberries. 'It is frustrating when this happens, but we don't let it get us down,' says Heather. 'With help, we have created a wonderful resource that enables us to follow the curriculum through the outdoors environment, and we intend to enter the Rosebowl competition again next year, with some more new ideas.'
From jungle to classroom
The garden at Highway Day Nursery in Eyemouth was 'a complete jungle', says nursery owner Cheryl Duggan. The nursery is in a former knitwear factory, now owned by the Highway Christian Fellowship church, of which Cheryl's husband is pastor. The church uses the premises on Sundays; the rest of the time it is used for the 36-place nursery. 'With help from church members, we have transformed the jungle into a well-maintained, interesting and imaginative facility for the children,' says Cheryl. She was inspired after attending a workshop by Learning Through Landscapes. In discussion with her staff, and by observing the children, she noted popular outdoor activities and thought how they could be enhanced.
The nursery garden now includes a large wall displaying letters of the alphabet, which the children can 'paint' over using water. The children are encouraged to recognise the letters in their own names and the objects in the garden, Cheryl explains. They can ride bikes along paving slabs with painted arrows and 'keep left' and 'stop' signs. Cheryl says, 'This activity can be extended by introducing traffic lights or role play with police or a lollipop man/lady, and it is useful in learning to follow instructions, play co-operatively, recognise familiar signs and connect the written and spoken word.'
The garden also features a bird-feeding area, where children are encouraged to recognise breeds by looking them up in a handy reference book. There is a rowing boat, a genuine boat's wheel-house, a climbing frame and slide. 'We feel that we can now offer 99.9 per cent of the curriculum out of doors,' says Cheryl.
