Green award for Floral Hall gardening project
A gardening and training project for adults with learning disabilities in the Highlands has won a national award for its environmental practices.
The Highland Council’s Floral Hall Garden Project based in the Bught, Inverness has won a gold in the Green Apple Awards which is organised by The Green Organisation - an independent environment group dedicated to recognising, rewarding and promoting environmental best practice around the world.
Up to 8 people attend the Floral Hall on a daily basis (Monday to Friday) under the tutelage of Jan Ooms, Floral Hall’s Trainer.
The project is a joint initiative between the Council’s Social Work and Education, Culture and Sport Services and began in 2002 by developing gardens on wasteland adjacent to the Floral Hall. After tremendous landscaping and planting works by trainees and staff, the project’s gardens were opened to the public in 2005.
Councillor Margaret Davidson, Chairman of the Highland Council’s Housing and Social Work Committee said: “Congratulations to all the trainees and staff who do such an excellent job at the Floral Hall. The Green Apple award is a splendid achievement. All concerned have demonstrated how to make a positive contribution to the environment while enjoying work that enhances their own health, wellbeing and happiness. Well done all.”
Included in the Project area are: a vegetable garden, hedgerow, fruit cage, herb garden, wild garden, butterfly garden, cottage garden, wildflower meadow, formal hedging, ornamental beds and also a large grassed area.
Trainees are involved with the normal garden maintenance routines such as weeding, watering, sowing, planting, pricking out, potting, hedging, edging, deadheading, pruning, composting, grass cutting and propagating. They have also participated in hard landscaping such as paths and paving, concreting and making slabs. The Project has always made every effort to be as environmentally friendly as it can be and has embraced and developed excellent organic practices.
The organic practices uses at the Project include:
• non-use of pesticides and herbicides
• composting of organic wastes
• crop rotations and companion planting in vegetable beds
• non-use of synthetic fertilisers
• non-use of peat unless except when recycled
• all weeding done manually and preventative measures include mulching
• Comfrey is grown to produce a liquid plant feed
All organic materials are composted and used for mulching, potting and propagating. Spent hops are collected periodically from a local brewery and are used to produce a weed free substrate for propagating and potting. The trainees ensure most of the plants used in the garden are propagated by division and cuttings of existing stock and from seeds. The Project is also doing some experimentation with hydroponics as a means of propagating and growing plants. Composting is an integral component of gardening and a significant amount of time and space is given to this.
The work of the Project attracts a great deal of praise from many of the 17,500 visitors to the Floral Hall each year and many enquire about the projects environmentally friendly growing methods so that they can use them in their own gardens.