There are not many garden experiences new to Gardening Australia guru Costa Georgiardis. But he discovered a few of them yesterday on a visit to Sathya Sai Primary School (SSPS) in Murwillumbah.
Costa was sung to in a garden for the first time, met a ‘carecrow’ and heard about ‘how words and thoughts influence gardening’.
Costa was impressed by the school’s native stingless beehive and he dispensed some advice on healing a tree after a branch broke while a student was swinging on it.
Members of the school Garden Guardians club learnt some more about organic gardening and composting and the importance of looking after soil.
As SSPS is a school of values (peace, love, truth, right conduct and non-violence), the staff, children and parents who made the garden’s scarecrow decided it was more appropriate to name it a ‘carecrow’. It is now being submitted into a scarecrow competition run by Tweed Shire Council.
During Costa’s visit, the children watered their organic food garden with watering cans labelled with the schools’ values while Year 2 student Tashi Moser explained to the gardening guru that ‘words matter so we want the water crystals in our garden to be full of good things as we feed the plants’.
Parents Michele Lockwood and Kristy McLeod worked with the Garden Guardians over three one-hour sessions to create the carecrow, Wagoora, (which is an Indigenous name for the Australian raven). Michele built his frame from chicken wire stuffed with paper and the children created his skin and form using natural fibres, recycled materials and found natural objects.
‘We decided we wanted to flip the ‘man versus nature’ aspect of scarecrows and embrace the harmonious relationship between birds and plants,’ Michele said.
