As it’s the Easter Holidays I have been doing loads of fun things;
in this short blog I’ll tell you about some of the things I’ve been up to, including my visit to Trowell Garden Centre and my Easter gardening tips.
Trowell Garden Centre Visit
Yum, yum, Digg Cafe
After a fantastic visit to Chaucer Junior School, gardening teacher Kerry and her husband, Derek took me and my Mum to Trowell Garden Centre. I was absolutely starving by this time so we went straight to the café, where I had the most delicious jacket spud and tuna!
It was here we met the Garden Centre Manager, Tania; she asked me lots of questions, which she later wrote up on their Facebook page:
“Clever, confident, green-fingered and refreshing, RHS Young Ambassador, George Hassall, aged just 11 years young, visits Trowell Garden Centre! George was invited to Trowell Garden Centre to enjoy some well deserved lunch in the Digg Café and meet up with our Owner David Henshaw and Steve Dann, the Plant Supervisor, who has just completed his Level 2 RHS qualification. After visiting Chaucer Junior Class where he addressed all their questions, George came back with his cracking answers….aside from questions like can you ‘give us some tips to grow tomatoes’, he was asked by one young pupil ‘ Why are you doing this George…is it to be on TV?’. George said, that would be OK, but it’s really because I like being with nature, in the garden and I do really have a passion for plants and hope to share this with others. Wow! What an answer! Made us smile!”
Trowell Garden Centre is independently owned by David and Barbara and they have worked hard to build it up over the years. David was very knowledgeable and talked to me about loads of very interesting facts, including the Latin names of plants. Tania kindly gave me some rock plants and herbs for my garden and Kerry bought me a pond Geum too.
I love Garden Centres, defo my favourite type of shopping and I’d really like to thank David and Tania for taking time out of their really busy day to spend time with me and make me feel so welcome
Chaucer Junior School Update
What an amazing card – I loved it
When I returned from my holidays I received a wonderful surprise – a beautiful hand-made card from Miss Oldnall’s Y4 class at Chaucer Junior School, saying how much they appreciated my visit. I loved the thought and effort they had put into the card. It was a lovely card and one that I will keep in my scrapbook; it was a pleasure meeting you guys, you made me feel so special.
I really loved meeting Kerry, she works very hard on the school garden and put a lot of time into organising my visit. Derek her husband was great too, as he really helped to make us feel welcome and even held our bags so my mum could take photos!
I made the front page of their local paper, the Ilkeston Advertiser – how fab!
Hulme Community Garden Centre
A hidden gem in the middle of Manchester
Speaking of Garden Centres, on Friday Hulme Community Garden Centre was on Gardeners’ World, which is great as it advertises the garden centre to help increase its popularity as it supports learning disabled people and children to get into gardening. It’s based in the middle of a city, so it really shows you can make a community garden work anywhere!
You can watch the clip here until 13th May.
RHS Campaign for School Gardening
Receiving my award from Francis Tophill
Just 12 days left to enter the RHS Young School Gardener of The Year Award or if you have a fantastic gardening teacher like Sarah and Kerry, then nominate them in the School Gardening Champion Award or if your whole gardening gang is like mega good, then nominate them in the School Gardening Team Award – come on young gardeners what are you waiting for!!!
Mossley Community Orchard
Those pesky weeds weren’t half hard to get out
Some good news came in on Good Friday – the Mossley Community Orchard site has been saved from going to auction!!! This is great as the whole community got involved to save the orchard, all the effort we had put in to plant it wasn’t wasted and the local wildlife habitats are protected. This means we have got to work super hard to keep it maintained in the future
Easter jobs in the garden
Favourite spring flowers, daffodils
1. De-head daffodils so all the plant’s energy goes into the bulb for next year’s growth
2. Plant peas at this time of year. We usually plant them in a toilet roll, but pots will work the same
3. Plant potatoes, onions and shallots straight into the ground. if you want to plant potatoes, but have no room, fear not, you can just plant them in a potato bag, which you can buy from most gardening stores
April Weather
The weather forecast doesn’t look good in some areas this week (frost predicted for some) so make sure you protect tender plants
My Next Event
Seed planting stall
I will be having my own stall at Stamford Park’s Spring Family Fun Day on 30th April, where I’ll be helping kids to plant seeds and I’ll be handing out some RHS Perfect for Pollinator’s flower seeds
Next blog
My next blog will be about the wonderful week I’ve just had in Wales – it was epic and it’ll take me a week to write it!!!
Green Fingered George 