Gardening fun for pupils at Duthie Park

22 April 2016

Green-fingered Aberdeen primary school pupils have been planting flowers and crops at a popular city park this week.

Throughout the week, pupils from three primary schools joined Duthie Park rangers and gardeners to plant seeds for flowerbed designs on the theme of “Trees, Bees and Butterflies”. The youngsters won a city-wide competition to design the beds on Great Southern Road which will be a part of Aberdeen’s national In Bloom campaign.

This competition was open to all primary schools and special schools in Aberdeen, with three age categories. The winners are:

Primary 1-3: Sara Caso, Airyhall School

Primary 4-5: Marcin Trojanowski, Bramble Brae School

Primary 6-7: Rachel Brown, Milltimber School

The winners and their classmates will return in the summer to help transfer their seedlings into the flowerbeds, bringing their colourful designs to life.

On Thursday, Kaimhill School pupils visited Duthie Park to learn about how their food goes from field to fork as part of a farming project organised by the park rangers and Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC).

The P3 class planted crops – including cereal, potatoes and turnips – in the community garden and got the chance to see a full-sized tractor up close.

Staff at SRUC’s Craibstone Campus supported the project by supplying the seeds and organising for the Massey Ferguson 5612 tractor, kindly supplied by local company Balgownie Ltd, to visit the park.

The pupils will return before the summer holidays to see how the crops have grown, then again after the holidays to help with the harvesting.

Aberdeen City Council Communities, Housing and Infrastructure Vice-Convener Councillor Jean Morrison said: “It’s great to see that so many pupils want to learn more about what’s involved in growing flowers and food crops. The Duthie Park Rangers’ Service does a brilliant job of creating opportunities for city pupils to take part in projects like these which teach them about the natural environment.

“I look forward to seeing the crops sprouting and flowerbeds blooming later in the year.”