Planting Lent lilies with tiny-tots
Our first session at St. Michael’s school with the youngest group of children was a great success!
It had rained all morning but as the weather forecast promised, the sun shone brightly between 2 and 4pm when we were there. We planned to plant 100 lent lily bulbs (Wild Daffodil – Narcissus pseudonarcissus)[1]. Three of us from HVCA Rewilding Group signed in and set about cutting a series of x shapes in the turf with spades. We’d chosen an area where Amanda, the reception teacher, and the children had previously planted young trees, since these delicate, early flowering native narcissus enjoy semi-shade.
A posse of about 15 four-year-olds appeared with Amanda, walking hand in hand across the grass towards us and we were glad we had had time to do some preparation. The bulbs were in a small tub and another tub contained dry, crumbly, soil collected from mole hills. We had 3 wooden “dibbers” with us to make holes.
The children caught on very quickly – some pressed the dibbers into the cente of the x shapes and gently lowered bulbs into the neat round holes while others ran to and fro with trowels filled with “mole soil” to sprinkle onto the bulbs. We talked about how the soil came from tunnels that moles make underground in their search for worms – their favourite meal But as worms are really important for good soil structure we took care to rescue any we dislodged with our digging.
We reached our goal of planting 100 bulbs and somehow, none of the narcissus we planted were squashed by little feet. We had such fun that no one wanted to leave and we look forward to helping Amanda again in her aim of making her outdoor classroom, the school grounds, increasingly nature friendly.Plant List
Here is a short list of the native plants we talked about with Amanda for shady areas at the beginning of the project.
Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum) Stinking Iris (Iris foetida) Yellow archangel (Dead nettle – Lamium galeobdolon) Hedge garlic (Jack by the Hedge – Alliaria petiolata) and Ferns All these plants are available from our own “wild garden” areas and I’m sure we will think of others. We can give Amanda winter aconites from my garden as I have hundreds!!
Your wild flower raised beds are a great idea that must make it so much easier for the children to plant and look after the flowers and learn about them. We would be delighted to help in any way that you would find useful .
[1] Lent lily bulbs, which bloom in early February, were supplied by GEE TEE Bulbs.
