Rosendale Nature Garden

This week we planted broad bean seeds using an ingenious self watering pot. Hopefully they will have started to germinate before the half term break and we can look forward to making broad bean pesto in the summer.

We gathered some small leaves and sticks, ground them down, and fed them into our soil making machine which should hopefully yield results in a month or two. We discussed how seeds are sleeping and need to be woken up with a soil blanket and water. Looking forward to seeing these Sweet Pea seeds flourish in glorious colour in the spring and summer.

We noticed how some trees in the nature garden have dropped their leaves (deciduous) whilst others keep their leaves all year round (coniferous). We then looked at the different types of soil found nearby and how they differ from each other. Soil is the upper layer in which plants grow, usually consisting of a mixture of organic remains, clay, and rock particles.

  Today we planted Christmas tree cuttings in the hope they will one day become our trees of the future. After filling the pots with earth we soaked the cuttings before applying some rooting powder and securing the cutting in the pot. It might take a year or two, but fingers crossed…

Although harder to find than in previous years, hedgehogs are a native British species who wisely decide to find a covering of leaves and hibernate during the worst of the winter months. Using clay and other objects found around the nature garden, the children have enjoyed making their own hedgehogs which could certainly grace the Christmas dinner table!

We placed a wildlife camera in the nature garden over the weekend and got some shots of mammals (foxes and a squirrel). We'll try and locate it in a more bird-friendly area next weekend and see what we can find.