Shuttleworth College was one of eight colleges
in the Ideal Young Gardeners of the Year Competition for the Ideal
Home Show. Shuttleworth College was selected for this honour by the
Prince’s Foundation.
The contest took place March and the
Shuttleworth students were competing against colleges in North
Yorkshire, Middlesex, Sussex, Cornwall, Surrey, Northamptonshire
and Essex, reports Geoff
Deeble, Horticulture Course
Manager.
Ideal Young Gardener 2011 – design
explanation, by Tabitha Dodge ND2 Horticulture
We, the National Diploma Horticulture class
(Second Year), created this design together to represent the unity
and support among the Shuttleworth Community. For other shows
we have been asked to design as individuals and the best design has
been chosen. This time we put our heads together and came up
with a joint design. Shuttleworth is a tightly knit College,
with lots of focus on the student body.
We focused on subjects such as sustainability
and biodiversity. As well as trying to follow the brief - we
also knew it was important to add our own ideas and quirks to the
design. Because of current rising prices in energy and fuels,
sustainability is becoming more and more important. We
created a vertical wall filled with herbs and vegetable plants to
promote ideas of city homes growing their own produce in a space
saving and time-efficient way.
The design included things like compost bins
and reusing wooden pallets to build up new parts for the
garden. We also included an area devoted to attracting and
protecting wild life. We built bug and bird boxes to provide
the animals with safe homes when they cannot find any, especially
in big cities and in areas where their homes are being
demolished.