Moone school celebrates opening of expanded garden
The Garden Club at St Colmcille's NS
ST COLMCILLE'S National School in Moone celebrated the official opening of its newly expanded school garden recently (23 September), with principal Darragh Flynn and special guest of honour, renowned environmentalist and broadcaster Éanna Ní Lamhna, joining the school community for the occasion.
The transformation of the school’s front garden has been a wonderful community-supported initiative.
The school has a very active weekly Garden Club, with enthusiastic pupils meeting every Thursday during their lunchbreaks throughout the school year.
Work began in earnest last Easter with the painting of donated tyres and continued from late April through to June. Parents, children and local members of the community generously gave their time, skills and resources to bring the project to life.
The result is a colourful, vibrant and pollinator-friendly space for all the children in Moone NS to enjoy, with the new tyre gardens proving particularly popular with younger pupils.
The colourful tyres have been transformed into imaginative spaces featuring fairies, dinosaurs and princesses, as well as a farm and a construction area, complete with a sandpit.
Maintaining the garden has also been a real community effort. Despite the challenging weather over the summer and the hosepipe ban, parents and children worked hard to keep the plants watered, using buckets and watering cans throughout the holidays — no mean feat!
The school community’s efforts have been rewarded with beautiful flowers and an impressive selection of organic produce from the fruit, vegetable and herb gardens. The children have grown sugar snap peas, broad beans, strawberries, blueberries, rainbow chard, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and potatoes. They are looking forward to harvesting the pumpkins in October.
The garden has become much more than a place to grow vegetables, fruit and flowers. It has developed into an outdoor classroom where children can learn about biodiversity, pollination, wildlife, food production and the importance of protecting natural habitats.
The official opening by Mr Flynn and guest of honour Ms Ní Lamhna provided a fitting celebration of the garden’s transformation and the tremendous teamwork, enthusiasm and community spirit that brought the project to life.
