Stourport High School pupils win praise for competition garden entry

Their garden also featured on the BBC’s Gardener’s World and drew praise from top landscape gardener Eliza Gray.

She said: “It’s a wonderful garden full of gorgeous plants and inspirational ideas.”

School gardening club members Harvey-James Gibson, Lola Dyoss, Georgia Woodhouse, William Woodman and Freya Walton, supported by cover supervisor Lucy Cooper and teaching assistant Milka Russell, spent three days creating the garden at Malvern, which featured around 300 plants.

Design and technology students helped out by building a swing, bug house and planters for the garden and art club members made and painted roses to adorn the swing frame.

Mrs Cooper said: “It was a very tough set of criteria we had to follow and we were overwhelmed to receive the highest award in the schools’ section of Highly Commended with a score of 14.5 out of 16 at the awards’ ceremony.”

Lack of sunlight slowed down the growth of many of their young plants and Paul Cook, of Cook’s Nursery, helped out by donating a large number of plants and loaned them his van to transport them to and from Malvern.

Mrs Cooper added: “We were very grateful to Paul for his kindness. He told us everyone was having the same growing problems.

“It was a privilege to work with the students and see how they incorporated our core values into everything they did. So many members of the public commented on how informative they were and how polite.

“We can’t wait to re-create the garden at school and are already looking forward to next year.”